


The Cabin Trip

by GallifreyisBurning



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Banter, Boating, Bonfires, Catskill Mountains, Copious amounts of alcohol - Freeform, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Getting Together, Hiking, Housing Swap, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Swimming, Vacation, hot tubs, look it’s pretty standard sex stuff I’m not that creative, recreational nudity (but just for a second), this whole thing is pretty much fluffy self indulgent nonsense, various other summer activities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:02:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29621724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyisBurning/pseuds/GallifreyisBurning
Summary: When Harry decides to swap his house in London for a cabin in the Catskill Mountains for a week, he’s excited for the chance to take a vacation with a group of his closest friends. He’s positive that his long-standing crush on Draco won’t be a problem; he’s been handling it just fine for years, after all. Unfortunately, he wasn’t counting on those tiny swim trunks. Or the way Draco licks melted chocolate off his fingers. Or having to rescue him from a rogue shower. And hedefinitelywasn’t counting on Draco deciding to sleep in Harry’s bed. But it’s going to be fine. Right?Featuring: gender fuckery fashion icon Blaise Zabini, Greg Goyle as “the dad friend,” Luna Lovegood petting wild animals that she absolutely should not be petting, and Harry and Draco not being nearly as subtle as they think they are.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Pansy Parkinson/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 66
Kudos: 442





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> As an unapologetic writer of self-indulgent fluff, I have to say, this might be the _most_ self-indulgent fluff that I have put out into the world to date. There’s not a lot of plot. There’s not much in the way of conflict. All there is, really, is a bunch of my favorite vacation memories stuck together with a mix of friendly banter and gentle pining.
> 
> Many, many thanks to my cheerleaders Kay and crazybutgood and to the absolutely amazing vukovich, who brainstormed with me, shared hilarious personal anecdotes that ended up getting used as plot points, and served as a friendly neighborhood allosexual who did things like read through the entire story and say “so… should they at least hint at sexual attraction to each other before the final bit, or did you intend for it to all be emotional?” Whoops. And, as always, thank you to mx_maneater, my younger self and forever-beta reader.
> 
> If you want a visual of the house the gang is staying in, here are two examples [(1)](https://www.vrbo.com/7390688ha?adultsCount=9&arrival=2021-07-01&departure=2021-07-08&unitId=6760786) [(2)](https://www.vrbo.com/994113?adultsCount=9&arrival=2021-07-01&departure=2021-07-08&unitId=1542069) of the style I’m describing. My particular version is made up of an amalgam of Catskills cabins I’ve stayed in over the years, but these can give you the general idea if you’ve never been! The surrounding forest and various natural features are also an amalgamation of places I’ve visited during my own mountain adventures. Overall, this story is a love letter to the times I’ve been lucky enough to disappear into the woods with my friends, s’mores fixings, and too much wine. Some day, the plague will retreat, and I’ll be able to go again for real instead of just writing about it.

“You traded your house.”

“Yes?”

“You _traded._ Your _house._ ”

“Yes!”

“Potter, you _traded your house!”_

“Stop saying it like that! You make it sound so dire; it’s only for a week!”

Harry and Draco’s conversation had been going in circles for what felt like ages, but Draco’s disbelief seemed to be growing, not diminishing, the longer it went on. 

“Well I think it sounds like fun,” said Ginny, chiming in from the kitchen table where she was sipping a beer and watching them in amusement. “How many people did you say this place could sleep?”

“The listing said eight to ten,” Harry said, gratefully directing his attention toward his friend. “There are five bedrooms; I think two have pairs of single beds and the other three have doubles.”

“We call the Master Suite,” Pansy piped in from where she was perched on Ginny’s lap, running her fingers through the shaved sides of her hair. 

“Merlin, get a room,” Draco groaned, eyeing them with disdain.

“That’s what I’m doing, darling.” She blew him a kiss, and he rolled his eyes.

“You can’t call the Master Suite,” Harry said, ignoring the exchange. “First of all, I’m not even sure if there _is_ one, and secondly, it’s my house—I get first dibs on bedrooms.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re going to take full advantage of it, are you?” Pansy reasoned. 

“You know, pointing out just how much sex you’re having with my ex-girlfriend _really_ isn’t the best way to get favors from me.”

“Oh please,” she said dismissively. “It’s been six years since you two split; that line is _far_ past its expiration date. Anyway it’s not _my_ fault you aren’t getting laid.” For half a second, Harry thought that her gaze had flicked toward Draco, but he quickly dismissed the idea as paranoia. Ginny snorted, burying her face in her girlfriend’s clavicle.

Harry rolled his eyes. “You can have _a_ room. Be glad I’m inviting you at all.”

“Can we get back to the part where you traded your house?” Draco asked.

“Oh my god, Draco, yes—I traded my fucking house.”

“For a cabin.”

“I mean, it’s more of a lodge, really; it’s got five bedrooms and a fucking hot tub.”

“In the woods.”

“Yes.”

“On a mountain.”

“Yes.”

“In _America.”_

“Why do you say that like it’s the fucking moon?”

“ _Why?”_

“Because it sounded like fun, and I wanted to get away for awhile! It’s a free stay in a very nice Wizarding vacation home in the Catskills, which are supposed to be beautiful. I really don’t understand why this is such a hard thing for you to wrap your head around.”

Draco huffed but didn’t say anything else.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, you know. I do actually have enough friends to fill a cabin—”

“Hah!”

“—without you,” Harry finished, ignoring the interjection.

“Don’t be stupid, of course I’m coming.” Draco rolled his eyes. “You’re not stealing all of my friends and leaving me in London for a whole week.”

Harry shook his head and gave a huff of amused exasperation. He couldn’t help but smile, however, as he landed a final blow. “You’re sharing a room with Greg,” he said, pushing off the counter where he’d been leaning.

“Wha—” Draco began indignantly, but Harry just smirked at him and popped the lid off another beer before leaving the kitchen to go back outside, where the rest of their friends were enjoying the last light of a long summer evening.

*****

A few years ago, just the _idea_ of spending a week in a secluded house with the eccentric little group he’d invited on this trip would have made Harry snort his beer out his nose. But then, three years ago, Ginny Weasley had—in a fit of drunken recklessness on a bet from some of her Quidditch teammates—sent a drink across a bar to an equally-drunk and reckless Pansy Parkinson. The rest was history. Soon, the pair were inseparable, and it hadn’t been long until the women, evenly matched in their stubbornness, had forced their respective friend groups together. 

It was awkward at first, but bit by bit, it had all begun to come together. Greg Goyle and Ron had found a mutual love of sport, joining up to learn Muggle football from Dean Thomas and playing with an ever-changing roster on the weekends. Blaise Zabini and Luna Lovegood had formed an odd sort of mutual fondness, their polar-opposite dispositions—Luna’s dreaminess and Blaise’s suave persona, Luna’s disinterest in sex or romance and Blaise’s ability to charm and seduce a new witch or wizard every week—balancing each other somehow. And Harry and Draco… well.

It wasn’t as though Harry was _pining_ or anything. He just really enjoyed Draco’s company, that was all. Once they’d gotten past their initial awkwardness and requisite apologies, they’d fallen into a familiar pattern of snark and rivalry that had become rather… well, fun. 

And if Harry noticed that Malfoy had grown into himself in an extremely physically appealing way, that was really just an objective observation. And sure, okay, they spent quite a bit of time together these days, often just the two of them. And _maybe_ it was possible that Harry’s eyes had a tendency to linger on Draco when no one else was paying attention. But it didn’t _mean_ anything. They were friends now, good friends, and Harry was grateful for it. Really.

*****


	2. Sunday

The nearest International Portkey Terminal to the cabin was in Newark, New Jersey.

“We’re going to be in a Muggle automobile for _two hours?!_ ” 

Harry gave Draco an exasperated look. “Would you rather blind-Apparate to a house in the middle of a forest without any way of getting to us if you miscalculate?” Draco shot him a glare.

“Are you two going to bicker like an old married couple for the whole drive?” Ron inquired, “Because if so, I’m riding in the other car.”

Draco sputtered something unintelligible, and Harry could feel himself flushing bright red. “We do not—”

“Ronald, you’re riding in my car anyway,” Hermione said exasperatedly, cutting him off. “And yes, you do,” she added matter-of-factly to Harry.

“See?” Ron said smugly.

After a bit of squabbling and several attempts to rearrange luggage, the group finally managed to split themselves into two vehicles: Hermione chauffeuring Ron, Draco, Luna, and Greg in a rather large SUV, and Harry, Ginny, Pansy, and Blaise taking a little economy car that Harry felt much more comfortable driving. Much to their chagrin, the rest of the group had unanimously decided that Harry and Draco would likely crash the car if they tried to drive together (Harry chose to believe that this was another commentary on their bickering and not on his distractibility when Draco was within view), and they were therefore relegated to separate vehicles.

To Harry’s relief, once they got underway, the ride was fairly uneventful. He didn’t often drive at home, and even then, it was on the opposite side of the road and not at nearly the speed that Americans seemed to prefer on the highways. Other than Ginny teasing him over his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Pansy’s whinging about leg room, and Blaise’s constant playing with the radio, however, everything went as smoothly as he could have hoped for.

As they neared their destination, they veered off of the crowded highway onto a series of emptier country roads, which eventually led to a rough dirt lane that Harry might have missed if it weren’t for the built-in GPS. 

“Oh wow,” Ginny breathed as they drove further into the dense forest.

They were surrounded by huge spruce and fir trees, dappled light filtering through to leave patterns of gold across the lane. The road was rocky and uneven, forcing Harry to slow the car to almost a crawl for the final stretch, but the pace only made the eventual view of their temporary residence even more dramatic. As they took their final turn onto a long, curved dirt driveway, he could feel a grin spreading across his face.

“That is _definitely_ not a cabin,” Ginny observed gleefully. 

Even Blaise looked impressed. “Not quite what I expected, I must admit.”

The house was intentionally rugged-looking, made of thick logs of dark-stained wood. The roof’s high peak shielded a wall of plate glass windows. A sprawling deck wrapped around three sides, jutting out over a rocky hill dotted with even more trees. To their left, at the back of the house, a wide stone patio held a large hot tub and fire pit. Harry squinted, trying to look between the lounge chairs for the advertised wood-burning pizza oven. Straight ahead of them, past the house, he could just make out the glint of sunlight on the lake that he knew they would find there.

It was exactly what he had hoped for.

As they climbed from the car, Harry happily breathing in the spicy smell of pine, the crunch of gravel announced the arrival of the rest of their party. “Oh, Harry, this is lovely!” Hermione called as she slammed her car door shut.

“Much nicer than our last place in the woods,” Ron joked, coming up beside Harry and clapping him on the shoulder.

“Looks great,” came Greg’s contribution. “Wonder what the insurance is on something like this?”

Draco looked a bit green as he clambered out of the SUV, but he managed a lopsided smile nonetheless. “Alright, Potter, you win. It’s not a cabin.” 

“Told you.”

*****

There were two bedrooms with two twin beds each on the ground floor and three doubles on the upper, one of which was definitely a Master Suite.

“Nope. Out,” Harry directed as Ginny began to drag her luggage inside, apparently hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“Oh, come on,” she whined, but Harry just raised his eyebrows silently. “Ugh, _fine.”_ Reluctantly, she turned around, slinking off to the remaining room further down the hall, Hermione and Ron having already claimed the other. 

Ron exited their room just in time to see her trudging past and laughed. “Told you that wouldn’t work,” he called after her, snickering as she flicked two fingers at him without turning around.

Shaking his head, Harry lugged his own bag into his room, dropping it heavily onto the floor and looking around appreciatively. The room itself was simple, most of the space taken up by a massive king-sized bed (which Harry grudgingly had to admit _was_ fairly excessive for one person). Sliding glass doors opened onto a private deck overlooking the lake, and another door led to an en suite bathroom almost the size of the bedroom, complete with a huge jacuzzi bath and a shower with four different shower heads mounted on the ceiling and walls. It was the most relaxing space that Harry could imagine.

Returning downstairs, Harry found most of his friends wandering around, exploring the rest of the house. He poked his head into each of the twin bedrooms, which he was relieved to note were quite nice. Although Luna and Greg were easy to please, he was fairly sure that, had they not been up to snuff, he never would have heard the end of it from Draco or Blaise.

The vast majority of the ground floor was made up of one huge, two-story tall room, framed on one side by the wall of windows they’d seen from the outside. It held a huge fireplace and an assortment of comfortable-looking furniture. The open plan led into a large, modern kitchen full of the latest magic-electric hybrid appliances, and a short flight of stairs led down to a games room and a mud room with a door to the patio. Harry was delighted by every bit of it.

“Hey, Harry!” came a call from the patio. Making his way out, he found Ron and Greg looking interestedly out toward the lake. “There’s another building down there; is that ours, too?” Ron asked.

“Yeah, that’s the boathouse.”

Greg’s face lit up. “Are there actually boats in it?”

Harry tried to remember, but his brain was a bit fuzzy from the time change and the long drive. “I think there are a couple of kayaks or canoes? We can go check, if you like.”

“Hell yes,” said Ron, his face alight as he made eye contact with an equally excited-looking Greg. Harry couldn’t help but smile fondly at the pair’s unrestrained enthusiasm.

“We’re going down to the lake if anyone wants to join!” Harry called back through the open door.

“Ooh, yes please,” said Luna from behind Harry, causing him to jump.

“Where did you come from?” he asked once his heart had begun to slow.

“I was exploring the woods,” she told him. “I’ve been researching the magical creatures of this region, and I was hoping to find signs of Wampus cats. They’re mostly further west, but I’ve heard that some have been spotted out this way.” 

“Let’s hope not,” Hermione chimed in, joining them. 

“Anyone else coming?” Harry asked.

“No, Ginny and Pansy have already shut themselves up in their room,” she said, ignoring the retching noise Ron made, “and Draco’s still feeling a bit carsick, so he’s lying down. I think Blaise might be napping; his door is closed as well.”

Harry was tempted to go check on Draco, but he managed to push down the urge. Malfoy was an adult; he could take care of himself. He probably didn’t want Harry hovering or babying him over something as commonplace as motion sickness. With effort, he managed to turn away from the house.

The five of them followed a dirt path down toward the lake, enjoying the summer sun that bathed them as the trees thinned and then petered away. It wasn’t long before they reached the boathouse, which was situated on a small wooden pier. Peeking inside, Ron grinned.

“One canoe, four kayaks, aaaaaand—“ he paused for dramatic effect “—a Floaterboat!”

“Oooooh,” came the collective appreciative responses of Hermione, Luna, and Greg. 

“Sorry, a what?” Harry asked, lost.

“It’s sort of like a Muggle motorboat—a pontoon boat, basically,” Hermione explained as the group peered into the dimly lit building, “but it runs on spells.”

“And they called it a _Floaterboat?!”_

Hermione laughed. “I'm 99% sure they were named by a Muggleborn who thought they were funny. Anyway, they’re supposed to be lovely, but I’ve never been on one. I don’t suppose anyone knows how to sail it?”

“I wish,” said Ron on a sigh.

“Blaise might,” Greg suggested, thumping the side of the craft with his palm a couple times like it was a horse he was appraising. “Malfoy’s family was too posh, but I think one of Blaise’s stepdads was into boating.” 

“I think I could figure it out,” said Luna contemplatively. Hermione grimaced.

“Let’s just ask Blaise, shall we?”

After poking around the boathouse a bit more and examining the pier, Harry, Hermione, and Luna headed back toward the house. Greg and Ron opted to stay behind and take out the canoe.

“Be safe!” Hermione called over her shoulder, earning a laugh and a ‘go on’ gesture from Ron. “What should we do this evening, do you think?” Behind them, they could hear Greg insisting that Ron use a flotation charm before getting into the boat.

“Honestly, I’m exhausted,” Harry admitted. “I might take a nap, try to adjust to the time difference a bit. We could pick up some dinner later? I think the owners left a list of nearby restaurants. I’m too knackered to think about cooking.”

“Sounds like a plan. I might try to sleep a little myself. Luna?”

“I think I’ll go back into the woods for a bit; if I can’t find a Wampus cat, I may at least be able to see some of the other local wildlife.”

“Have a shield charm ready, okay?” Harry knew there was no sense in trying to talk her out of her explorations, but he hoped he could at least convince her to keep her guard up.

“Oh, don’t worry, nothing will hurt me,” she reassured him with a smile before veering off the path and into the trees.

The mudroom seemed dim after the bright sunlight, but to his right, Harry could make out a tall, lean figure in the games room. As Hermione headed upstairs, he rerouted himself, leaning against the doorway. “Hey Draco. Feeling any better?”

Malfoy looked up from where he was examining the Billiards table. “Much, thank you. Those automobiles are evil; I can’t understand how Muggles stand them.”

“They’re not that much worse than the train, are they?”

“Mother used to pack me nausea potions for the train.” 

He twirled a cue between his long fingers, studying it. Harry pointedly didn’t watch. Instead, he pushed himself off the door frame and walked over to the table, studying it.

“Have you played?” Malfoy asked casually, making Harry look up. He was glancing sideways from under long lashes, his eyes sparkling mischievously in the dim light. 

Harry held his gaze for what might have been a moment too long before clearing his throat and looking away. “Once or twice.” Running his fingers over the green felt top, he felt a tingle of magic and smiled. “The Muggle kind, anyway. How does the wizarding version work?” 

“Ah, well, you see—”

As Draco launched into an explanation of the variations between Muggle and magical pool, Harry found himself zoning out a bit, watching his expressive hand and arm motions. Malfoy was such an animated talker, he thought. He always had been, of course, but now that it wasn’t part of malicious reenactments of Harry’s worst moments, he’d developed a great appreciation for it. There was something captivating about his energy, about the way his long fingers gestured to illustrate his words, almost drawing pictures in the air. His face lit up when he was explaining something, aglow with the pleasure of sharing his expertise. It was beautiful to watch, even if it did sometimes send Harry’s mind spiraling into thoughts of what those hands would be like in other situations. Especially now, when he was fondling that damnable pool cue. Fucking hell, did he even _notice_ that he was— 

“— _Harry._ Are you even listening to me?” 

Harry blinked at the irritated tone, realizing that Draco had probably been trying to get his attention for a while. Blushing, he attempted to excuse his momentary distraction, hoping his wandering thoughts weren’t visible in his expression. “Sorry, I’m just really tired. I was heading to take a nap when I saw you in here.”

Malfoy gave a theatrically exasperated sigh, but there was a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Well, go on then. We’ve got plenty of time for me to destroy you at Billiards another day.”

“You wish,” Harry grinned. 

“Get out of here,” Malfoy laughed, shooing him away. “Go sleep, you’re useless to me right now.”

“God forbid.” Shaking his head, Harry headed up to finally answer the siren’s call of his wide, inviting bed.

*****

When Harry woke up a few hours later, he was feeling distinctly less disoriented. In fact, he was finally lucid enough to remember the house guide that his swap-mates had sent and which was buried somewhere in his bag. The house guide that, conveniently, laid out all of the information he hadn’t been able to remember in enough detail to share with his friends.

“I’m an idiot,” he sighed to himself before digging the thin book out from under his jumbled pile of clothes. Sadly, he hadn’t gotten much better at packing since his Hogwarts days. Tucking the book under his arm, he made his way downstairs.

“Anyone ready to start thinking about dinner?” he asked, dropping the book onto the large dining table—a massive, lacquered slab of wood with uneven sides that appeared to be a vertical slice of a large tree—and flipping it open to the page of restaurants. “I’ve got the list of places nearby that the hosts left.”

“Merlin, yes.” Ron’s voice came from the floor in front of the fireplace, where he was flopped on his back, looking exhausted. “Canoeing takes a lot of energy.” 

Hermione looked up from where she was curled up on one of the squashy sofas, a field guide of some sort open in front of her. “Still thinking of picking something up?”

“Definitely. We can do groceries tomorrow. The house book says they left us some coffee and pastries for tomorrow morning, so we’re okay for breakfast.” 

“House book?” Hermione perked up. 

Harry placed a hand over it protectively. “Let’s get food handled, and _then_ you can read it cover-to-cover, yeah?”

Hermione sighed, but settled back into her seat. “ _Fine._ ”

Ginny wandered in from somewhere and looked over Harry’s shoulder at the list of options. “Can we do pizza?”

“There’s a pizza oven out back,” Harry pointed out.

“Yeah, but that’s _fancy_ pizza. I want shitty American restaurant pizza.”

Harry shrugged. “Fine by me. Pizza work for everyone?”

*****

Ron joined Harry on his drive to pick up their food and was delighted to find that the pizza place also sold six-packs of beer. He’d insisted on picking out several, mostly based on how much he liked the designs of the labels, before finally allowing Harry to pull him away. By the time they got back, everyone had congregated in the main room and Hermione had found a stack of plates in one of the cupboards. Dinner was a haphazard affair, with people sitting wherever they chose—at the table, on the squashy chairs of the living room, on the tall stools of the peninsula that loosely demarcated the line between the kitchen and main room. 

While they ate, Pansy and Ginny flipped through the pages of the house guide, pointing things out to each other. Ginny had all but wrestled the book from Hermione when she realized that she was poised to monopolize it for the rest of the evening. “Ooh look, there’s instructions for the hot tub,” Ginny said. “Let’s do that after dinner.” 

Harry smiled, looking up from where he was seated next to Draco at the peninsula, engaged in an ongoing battle over the fork and knife Draco kept trying to use to eat his pizza. “You read my mind, Gin,” he said, even as he—once again—removed the fork from Draco’s hands and held it well away from him. “No! This is not fork food. Use your hands like a normal person.”

“Your manners are appalling,” Draco complained, propping one hand on Harry’s thigh and leaning over him to try to regain his cutlery.

Greg looked doubtfully at Ginny, ignoring Harry and Draco. “That thing didn’t look very big; I wouldn’t think it could fit more than two people.”

“It says here that it adjusts its size depending on how many people are using it,” Pansy said. 

Hermione, who had been pointedly ignoring the pair after her defeat, looked up, her injured pride taking a backseat to her curiosity. “Really? That’s quite a tricky bit of magic.”

“I could be persuaded to go for a soak,” Blaise commented from one of the sofas, where he was stretched out, empty plate on the floor next to him. “It’s been ages.”

“Weren’t you at that new spa last week?” Draco asked, raising an eyebrow, reclaimed fork in hand. Harry tried to use his moment of distraction to steal it once more, but Draco tightened his fingers and jabbed the tines at him until he held his hands up in surrender.

Blaise rolled his eyes at them. “As I said. Ages.”

“Hot tub it is,” Ginny announced. 

Once everyone had finished their meal, they all dispersed to change into their swimsuits. When Harry stepped outside in his trunks, he found Greg and Ron already leaning over the dials of the tub, looking between them and the guide. Before he reached them, lights went on underneath the surface and the water began to bubble and steam. The sun was just dipping under the horizon, and the flare of light stood out against the twilit sky. Harry thought it looked a bit like a particularly volatile potion coming to a boil.

Greg eyed the water doubtfully. “Still seems unlikely this is going to fit us all.”

“No way to find out but to try, yeah?” Ron climbed in eagerly, and Harry, not to be out-Gryffindored, quickly followed. Sure enough, as soon as Harry’s feet hit the water, the tub expanded slightly, leaving it a perfect size for two. He laughed in delight. Magic really never got old. As Harry settled, Greg grimaced at the water but stepped in, heaving a sigh of relief as the space once again expanded to accommodate his broad form. 

They were soon joined by the girls, followed by Draco, whom Harry had to force himself to look away from; his pale skin fairly shone against the darkening sky, and his shorts really were much shorter—and much tighter—than Harry thought was necessary. He was trying his best not to stare at Draco sliding into the water next to him when he was distracted by the sight of Blaise Zabini sauntering out the door, completely in the nude.

Harry’s jaw dropped. Ron slapped a hand over Ginny’s eyes in horror. Hermione blushed, Ginny pushed Ron’s hand off and cackled, Pansy and Greg rolled their eyes, and Draco glared at Blaise as though he had been personally wronged. Luna seemed completely unconcerned. 

“Darling, must you?” Pansy queried.

Blaise ignored her, stepping toward the hot tub and climbing in unconcernedly. He stood right next to Luna, putting him directly across from Harry and Draco—and thus _right_ in Harry’s eyeline. Harry looked up towards the emerging stars in an effort not to gawp. It wasn’t as though he, personally, was attracted to Zabini, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate a nice looking cock when he saw one, and... well. There was rather a lot of cock to look away from, was all.

“For fuck’s sake, sit down, will you?” Draco hissed as Blaise took his time adjusting to the water. “Exhibitionist.” 

Once he’d submerged himself up to his neck in the now rather large tub, Blaise sighed contentedly before saying, “So, there appears to have been a bit of a mix-up with the luggage. Mine seems to have been left behind at the portkey station.”

Now that it was safe to look, Harry glanced over at him, his brow wrinkling in confusion. “But you put your bag into our boot when we were arranging everything; I saw you.”

“That was my _toiletry_ bag. My wardrobe was in another case.”

“You needed a separate _bag_ for your toiletries?!” 

“Obviously. One doesn’t maintain this face _naturally._ ”

“For fuck’s sake,” Draco sneered. “So, what, we’re all just supposed to put up with you flouncing about in the nude for the entire week?”

“Nudity is nothing to be ashamed of,” Luna observed airily.

Hermione coughed. “I’m sure we can each let Blaise borrow a few things from us. Harry, there’s laundry here, right?”

“Er, yeah, in a closet in the mud room, I think.”

“Well. That’s settled then.”

The group relaxed, chatting about the various activities they had open to them in the coming days. Harry allowed himself to tune out, watching tendrils of steam rise around them. He laid his arms along the edge of the tub, enjoying the juxtaposition of the nearly-too-hot water against the cooling night air. The heat eased the tension his muscles had built over the course of their travels, and he allowed his eyes to close as he took everything in—the smells of night air, pine, and the faint memory of woodsmoke; the sounds of bubbling water, crickets, and his friends’ chatter. Draco’s knee drifted to rest against his, thrilling and comforting at the same time—an odd mix of sensations that Harry had gotten used to experiencing in conjunction when it came to Draco.

He must have drifted off for a moment, because he shortly found himself jolted awake by a put upon “oh for fuck’s sake!” from his left. His eyes shot open only to see that the tub had shrunk significantly, and he was now sitting only feet from a messily snogging Ginny and Pansy. Luna, who was still sitting next to them, seemed unbothered, but Draco—who had been the source of the complaint and was the only other person left—was looking at them in disgust. The full length of his thigh was now, Harry noticed, pressed firmly against his own. “Can you two not _at least_ keep your hands off of each other while we’re sharing small spaces?”

The pair parted and Pansy raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m surprised you noticed. Your attention seemed… otherwise occupied.” She smirked, and Harry thought Draco went a bit red—although that could have been from the hot water. 

“I’m going to bed,” Draco sniffed. He stood abruptly, in what was probably intended to be a dignified manner. The effect was ruined by his immediately wobbling rather worryingly.

“Careful, there,” Harry said, catching Draco by the waistband without thinking, his fingers falling half on sodden fabric and half on bare skin, hot and slippery against his hands. Draco’s shorts were clinging even more noticeably to his form, now, and his torso was _very_ close to Harry’s face—and, suddenly, Harry was feeling rather dizzy himself. He pulled his hands back, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“Quite alright,” Draco answered, his voice a bit breathy and his face, if possible, even redder. “Stood up too fast. I should’ve been more careful.” He paused, looking like he wasn’t quite sure what to say before finally just adding: “Thank you.” 

“Right. No problem.” Harry cleared his throat. Ginny snorted. Awkwardly, Draco stepped out of the tub, grabbing a fluffy towel from a stack that had been left nearby and heading inside. Once the door had closed behind him, Harry took a deep breath, gathering himself. “I should probably head in, too,” he said. “Pretty sure you’re not supposed to fall asleep in these things.”

“No, I expect not,” Pansy said, giving him a knowing look which Harry chose to ignore. “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight.” Harry made his way up to his room, brushing his teeth, stepping into the shower, and absolutely not thinking about the feel of Draco’s flushed, slick skin under his hands.

*****


	3. Monday

After breakfast, Harry, Ron, and Greg—as the three who were likeliest to cook—ended up going to the small grocery store in the town nearest to the cabin. The refrigerator would supposedly let you order your groceries directly, but all three had agreed that they much preferred to select their own ingredients rather than trust the reliability of relatively new magic-electric technology. Draco and Hermione had both offered to come with them, but Harry had managed to convince them that three people were more than enough to do the shopping. Draco had pouted, but capitulated when Harry promised to bring back cocktail ingredients. Hermione had offered to write a detailed meal plan and shopping list, but Ron managed to dissuade her. 

As they poured over ridiculously priced produce, Harry had a moment of regret that he hadn’t let Hermione have her way. He hadn’t wanted to have his vacation be too strictly structured, but planning five and a half days worth of meals on the fly had turned out to be a bit more complicated than he’d expected. Still, by the end of their trip, they had filled the boot of the car with bags upon bags of dry goods, vegetables, fruits, and meats. A second stop filled the half of the back seat that wasn’t taken up by Ron with what seemed, to Harry, to be a rather ridiculous amount of alcohol, but Ron and Greg were adamant that it was in no way excessive for nine people on a week-long vacation.

When they returned to the cabin, they were greeted by an empty house. Ron poked around as Harry and Greg unloaded the groceries, trying to figure out where everyone had gone, and eventually found a note in Hermione’s handwriting on the table indicating that they’d all gone down to the pier. Once everything was put away, the trio wandered down the path to join them all.

A selection of lounge chairs had been requisitioned from somewhere—probably the boat house—and Draco, Pansy, and Blaise were all lying prone in various states of undress, apparently enjoying the summer sun. Hermione was on a fourth chair, an umbrella shielding her as she studied the house guide, and Ginny sat on the edge of the pier, legs dangling in the water, looking bored. Luna was nowhere to be seen.

Harry let his eyes linger on Draco, enjoying the chance to ogle without judgement for a moment, before announcing their presence. “Better watch it there, Malfoy!” he called down to Draco as he stepped onto the pier. “You’ll get wrinkles.” Draco snorted, not budging from his lounge chair as Harry approached. 

“Sun charm, Potter. I’m not an idiot.” Harry rested a hand on the back of Draco’s chair, and Draco looked up. “You’d better have brought me something sweet. I was promised cocktails.”

Harry smiled down at him fondly as Draco reached up to run his fingers down Harry’s hand. He felt his heart stutter at the touch and was sure his face must have done something extremely embarrassing for a second before he got it back under control. He hoped desperately that no one had noticed. “Obviously. I don’t have a death wish.”

“Debatable.” Draco smirked, and Harry moved his hand to mess up the meticulously styled white-blond hair, earning himself an indignant squawk and effectively ending the moment.

“Oh thank _Merlin_ you’re back!” Ginny said, looking over her already-sun-freckled shoulder at them. “This lot is _so boring._ Come swimming with me?”

“Hell yes,” Ron answered. “Harry?”

“Sure. I’ve got to go change into my swim trunks and put on a vision charm first, though.”

“Make us a drink while you’re up there, will you, darling?” Pansy directed from under a wide-brimmed sun hat and a pair of dark sunglasses.

“I can grab some beers,” Greg offered.

“Good lord, no,” Blaise interjected. “It’s obviously margarita weather. And I don’t trust either of you with my recipe, so I’ll make them myself. I assume you bought me the correct supplies?” At Greg’s affirmative, he unfolded himself from where he’d been lounging, drawing attention to his rather eccentric ensemble. He was wearing a filmy floral skirt that was obviously Luna’s—it was probably full-length on her, but on him, it hit at mid-calf. He’d paired it with gold sandals that must have been charmed larger to fit him and a matching three-strand gold necklace that hung almost to his navel. Harry found himself feeling both amused and resigned at the realization that he pulled it off perfectly. 

“Anyone else need anything?” he asked, looking away, and when he was waved off, the group traipsed back up to the house. 

When they returned, Ginny was already in the lake, paddling slowly to keep herself afloat. “Come on in, the water’s perfect!” she yelled up at them. 

Harry narrowed his eyes at her. Over the years, he’d come to realize that she took more than a little after Fred and George, and he found the glint in her eye rather suspect. Ron, however—rather naively, in Harry’s opinion—seemed to take her word for it. Taking a running start, he cannonballed off the end of the pier, sending up a wave of murky water that (luckily for him) didn’t quite reach where Blaise was distributing margaritas.

When Ron resurfaced, he was gasping and shivering. He glared at Ginny, who was laughing uncontrollably, and promptly grabbed her around the shoulders, pushing her completely under. She was still laughing when she popped back up, despite the cold water streaming from her hair. “That was perfect,” she said, sighing happily.

“I hate you,” Ron pouted, treading water. Then, he let out a shriek. “What the hell is that?! It’s _slimy!_ ” He paddled back toward the pier and began to pull himself back up while Ginny broke into a new bout of giggles. “It’s just seaweed, you giant baby.”

“Is it still seaweed if it’s in a lake?” Harry asked, curious.

“Technically, they’re aquatic macrophytes,” Hermione told him without looking up from the nature guide she had apparently switched to while he was changing. “There’s a whole section in here on the various species, if you—”

“Er, maybe later, love,” Ron cut her off.

“No, I’m interested,” Draco objected, sitting up and stretching. Harry smiled to himself as Draco turned on his lounger and Hermione began a lecture, catching the terms ‘free-floating plants’ and ‘macro-algae’ before he tuned them out. 

Margarita in hand, he joined a shivering Ron in sitting at the edge of the pier and dipped one foot in the water. “Merlin _fuck_ , that’s cold!” he gasped, swiftly pulling it back out.

“I told you!” Ron said.

“Technically you didn’t; those were visible context clues at best.”

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it,” Ginny insisted.

“Should’ve asked Nev for some Gillyweed before we left; the Great Lake was almost balmy when I used that during the Triwizard Tournament.”

“Wonder if it grows around here?” Ginny said speculatively, looking around as though expecting to see the rare plant sprouting from the nearby shore.

Draco sniffed derisively from his spot by Hermione, raising his voice to address them. “It’s a saltwater plant native to the Mediterranean, Ginevra.” He rolled his eyes. “Honestly, how any of you passed Herbology is beyond me.” Ginny tried to splash a wave of water at him, but it fell short. He smirked and returned to his conversation.

“Alright,” Harry exhaled. He downed his margarita for courage, setting the glass aside. “Here goes nothing.” Standing, he took a few steps back before launching himself forward into the water with a large _splash_. When he rose, pushing his hair back out of his eyes, Ginny was cracking up once more, and Ron was looking at him, eyes wide with betrayal, hair freshly soaked.

“Mate!”

Harry grinned. “Sorry?” He paddled back from the pier a bit.

Ron’s eyes narrowed, and he clambered to his feet before jumping back into the water, taking Harry down with a flying tackle. As Harry resurfaced, laughing, he saw Ron’s eyes go wide as he was yanked back under, apparently by the ankle, by a submerged Ginny. 

“Help!” Ron cried desperately toward their friends on dry land. “It’s two against one!”

Greg set down his empty beer bottle and climbed from the lounger he’d settled into. “I’ve got you!”

Another gigantic splash as another body hit the water, and all was chaos. 

*****

“We’re doing pizza again?” Pansy complained several hours later as Greg happily kneaded dough in the kitchen. They were all sun-dazed and sleepy, and Harry felt pleasantly exhausted in a way that he usually associated with Quidditch or football. He was seated at the peninsula, and Ginny and Pansy were nearby, leaning on the countertop and watching Greg work. In the main room, Hermione and Ron were curled up on one sofa, and Draco was stretched out along another, visibly struggling to stay awake. Harry absolutely did not find it adorable.

“It’s _fancy_ pizza this time,” Ginny insisted. 

Pansy rolled her eyes, but pulled Ginny close and kissed the side of her head affectionately. “Fine. But if I can’t fit into my clothes because of vacation weight after this, I’m blaming you.”

Ginny grinned in victory and turned, looping her arms over her shoulders and kissing her lightly. “If that happens, you can use it as an excuse to buy a new wardrobe.”

Pansy smirked at her affectionately. “It’s like you know me.”

Ron made a gagging noise, and Hermione thwapped him lightly with the magazine of local attractions she was currently browsing. “Let them be happy!”

“Do I have to?” he complained, holding his hands up in resignation at her glare before turning to look at Greg. “How long does that need to rise before we can cook?” he asked.

“Half hour,” Greg answered without looking up. “I lit the fire in the oven before I started this, so we should be ready to start in like… 40 minutes?”

“I thought the manual said you could heat the oven instantly with the magical modifications,” Harry said, confused.

Greg kept kneading his dough. “I wanted to do it authentically.”

Harry shook his head but smiled. “Fair enough.”

Ron yawned and stretched. “Great, well, I’m taking a shower and a nap.”

“Me too,” Harry agreed. He hadn’t used his fancy shower yet, but he’d read the instructions in the house manual and was keen to try it out.

*****

Forty five minutes later, Harry woke to the sight of Luna looming over him, her head tilted as though she was observing some form of interesting wildlife rather than a friend of more than a decade, her long hair tickling his nose. “Jesus,” he said, scrambling back a bit to sit up, one hand clutching the towel that was thankfully draped across at least the most important bits of his lower half. “You couldn’t have, I dunno, shaken me or something?”

Luna straightened and shrugged. “Gregory’s just put the first pizza in the oven, if you’d like to come down.”

Harry rubbed his eyes and reached for his glasses. “Yeah, alright.” He blinked at her, ruffling his hair sleepily. “Where have you been all day, anyway?”

“Oh, I was in the woods, mostly,” she told him, waiting patiently as he climbed out of bed and began rooting through his suitcase for clean clothes; after his shower, he’d collapsed on the bed and fallen asleep almost immediately, towel still wrapped around his waist. Not all that long ago, he thought he would have felt self conscious changing in front of Luna, but now that the lot of them had witnessed Blaise prancing around in the buff, it felt rather unremarkable.

“Harry, where did you—Merlin and Morgana, Potter, why is your door open?! Put some clothes on!” Harry straightened from where he’d been bent over and looked over his shoulder, a pair of jeans and a worn tee in his hands, to find a rather pink Draco standing in the doorway. Despite his words, he was making no effort to turn away; instead, his eyes were focused quite firmly on Harry’s bum. Harry found his reaction somewhat surprising but immensely gratifying. Still, though— 

“Draco, we’ve shared a locker room.” Harry leant back down to try to find underwear in his disaster of a suitcase. Eventually, he managed to unearth a pair of boxer briefs and pull them on.

“That was _different_ ,” Draco said from behind him, sounding petulant.

Harry rolled his eyes, but he was grinning as he climbed into his jeans. “There. Am I modest enough for you now?” He turned and spread his arms out, presenting himself for inspection.

Draco was still _very_ pink. He bit his lip as his eyes traveled up Harry’s body. “No.” 

“Huh,” Harry teased, trying not to sound giddy as he pulled his shirt over his head, “I didn’t realize you were such a prude.” 

“I thought you liked looking at Harry without his shirt on,” Luna observed placidly. 

Draco made a spluttering noise. “I _—”_

Harry laughed, a warm little ball in his belly at the idea of Draco looking at him while he wasn’t paying attention. 

“Don’t be self conscious, Draco, it’s perfectly natural. Harry likes to look at you, too. Why, just last night—”

Harry’s amusement came to an abrupt halt as he rushed to cut her off. “RIGHT. Pizza. Downstairs. Draco, were you looking for something?” He knew that his voice had gone a bit high, but anything was better than letting Luna finish that sentence. 

Draco, who was now staring at Luna, blinked. “Yes. Right. We were looking for the red wine.”

“Of course. Yeah. I can show you, come on.” 

Several minutes later, Harry, Luna, and Draco joined the rest of their friends on the patio, where they were scattered across the chairs and sofas ringing the space. A table in the center held an array of glasses and plates, and Draco and Harry deposited the bottles of wine they’d collected next to them.

“There you are, Draco,” Blaise drawled. “I wondered what was taking you so long up in Harry’s room.” He’d donned a black, satiny blazer that he was wearing open over his skirt; Harry immediately recognized it as the one Draco had worn to Pansy and Ginny’s New Year’s Eve party several months ago. Much to Harry’s amusement, Blaise still wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“Why did you even have that _with_ you?” he asked quietly, looking at Draco, eyebrows raised, trying not to laugh.

Draco sniffed. “I prefer to be prepared for any occasion.”

“Good to know.”

“Just in time!” Greg announced, stepping back from the oven and pulling out a long, flat peel with a perfectly golden margherita pizza at its end. Carefully, he slid it onto a waiting platter. “Someone cut that up; I’ll go prep the next one.”

Hermione took charge of the pizza cutter, carefully rolling it to slice the pie into ten even pieces. 

“Don’t you usually have to wait a few minutes to do that to keep the pizza from tearing apart?” Harry asked, watching in interest as she began portioning the slices onto plates.

“Magic,” she said with a grin. “The cutter’s charmed.”

“Awesome.”

Draco had decanted one of the bottles of red while Hermione worked, and was now waving Ginny away as she attempted to pour herself a glass. “It needs at least ten more minutes, you heathen,” he berated her. “Hasn’t Pansy taught you _anything?”_

While Ginny bickered with him, Hermione rolled her eyes and passed Ron one of the other bottles under her arm, which he swiftly opened and poured, taking glasses for himself and Hermione before handing one to Ginny and clinking his own against it. “Cheers.”

Draco’s jaw dropped and he looked over at Pansy in betrayal. “Was she serving as a diversion?!”

Pansy snickered. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ll wait with you for the proper stuff. But I was hardly going to stop her.”

“No one here appreciates my exquisite taste,” Draco pouted, flopping onto the middle of an unoccupied sofa and crossing his arms petulantly. 

Harry tried to hide a laugh as he accepted a slice of pizza from Hermione and a glass of wine from Ron before claiming the seat next to Draco, nudging his sprawled legs with a knee to make room. He took an eager bite of his pizza and then paused, chewing slowly, trying to figure out just what he was tasting. Wrinkling his brow, he dropped his voice in case Greg was on his way back out. “Er… does something about this taste a little… off, to anyone else?”

In response, Draco leaned over and nipped a corner off the piece in Harry’s hand before he could protest. He chewed thoughtfully, licking his lips as he considered. “Perhaps a bit?” 

Ron swallowed and shrugged. “Tastes fine to me, mate.” 

Blaise took a small bite, swallowed, and then seemed to consider. “It does have a bit of an aftertaste, now that you mention it. Sort of like—”

“Floo powder,” Hermione finished for him. “It tastes like Floo powder.”

“Have you tried Floo powder before?” Luna asked curiously.

“It tastes like Floo powder _smells_ ,” Hermione clarified.

“Oh.” Luna sounded disappointed.

Harry’s eyes widened. “Did someone try to use the pizza oven as a Floo?”

A series of questioning looks went around the circle, before Hermione gently queried, “Ron, did you happen to…”

Ron squawked in indignation. “Me?! Why would you assume it was me?”

“Well, you do have a bit of a history of… unorthodox use of travel and communication devices,” Hermione defended.

“I do NOT—”

“Telephone? Flying car? Getting blocked in behind the Floo at Harry’s aunt and uncle’s house? Any of this sound familiar?”

“That was all _ages_ ago! And the Floo thing was Dad’s fault!”

“I mean, you still don’t really drive or use phones or anything, though,” Harry agreed reluctantly, grimacing at Ron’s look of outrage. “Sorry, but you know it’s true.”

“I am NOT the only person here who didn’t grow up with Muggle stuff,” Ron grumped. “In fact, you two are the only ones who did!”

Ginny was snickering into her hand.

“Well, _I_ would certainly never try to use an outdoor oven as a Floo,” Blaise opined.

“You had two different Muggleborn stepfathers, though,” Draco pointed out. “That does provide you with a bit more literacy in non-wizarding _accoutrements_.” He pronounced ‘ _accoutrements’_ with a perfect accent, and Harry attempted to appear unaffected by how stupidly sexy he found it.

“Was that a confession, dearest Draco?” Blaise asked with a smirk.

“Of course not! I’m not an idiot. Unlike Weasley.”

“It wasn’t me!” Ron insisted. “Also, fuck you,” he added, glaring at Draco.

“Mmm, no thank you,” Draco answered. Ron flipped him off, and Draco winked at him.

“Well, who else would it have been?” Pansy asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Ginny buried her head in her girlfriend’s neck, snorting.

“I did not come here to be attacked like this,” Ron scowled. 

“What’s going on?” Greg asked, emerging from the house with a new pizza on the peel.

“The pizza tastes like Floo powder,” Luna told him, “and everyone is blaming Ron. I don’t mind it,” she added. “It makes it more unique.”

Greg settled the peel on the table and turned to give Pansy a disapproving look. She looked studiously away from him. “Pansy Parkinson, I pulled your head back from that fire myself. You apologize to Ron.”

“Parkinson!” Ron yelled. “You were just going to let everyone blame me?!”

Pansy shrugged nonchalantly and stood to pour herself a glass of apparently now properly decanted wine. Ginny was practically choking trying to hold back her laughter. Harry grinned, partially in amusement at Ron’s indignance and partially at how Draco was currently smothering a fit of giggles against his shoulder.

Ron pointed at Ginny accusatorily. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“The ends of her hair are singed,” she cackled gleefully.

“I’m your _brother!”_

“Exactly! Watching you suffer is my greatest joy.” Ginny winked and sipped her wine. She really was remarkably like the twins, sometimes.

“Why were you trying to use the Floo?” Hermione asked Pansy.

Pansy sighed. “I was hoping to contact the Portkey station for Blaise’s luggage.” Blaise raised an eyebrow and she made a face. “I just don’t want to lend you my clothes! This whole… gender-fuckery fashionplate thing is cheating.”

“Thank you, darling,” Blaise said, preening. “It’s immensely flattering that you view me as a threat to your aesthetic.” 

Pansy rolled her eyes. “Don’t get cocky, I’m still prettier than you.”

“Hmm,” Blaise hummed, sounding unconvinced. 

Greg sighed sadly. “I’m going to have to clean out the oven and start over. Unless someone knows a charm for that?”

“Let me,” Hermione said, patting Ron sympathetically on the shoulder as she passed him. 

Harry just sat back, shaking his head and smiling.

*****


	4. Tuesday

Blaise did, it transpired, have some experience with a Floaterboat—and so, on Tuesday, they filled a cooler with snacks and drinks and piled on board. 

It was a blisteringly hot day, making the shade of the boat’s canopy and the breeze of their passage a blissful respite. Their wake crashed in waves behind them, occasionally catching on the wind to spray them all in a fine, cool mist. Blaise was in full yacht-captain mode, clearly in his element as he lounged in the luxurious driver’s seat in a striped boat-neck crop top, white capri pants, and a captain’s hat he’d gotten from Merlin-knew-where. He held a martini impressively steadily in one hand, the other hand on the wheel.

Harry had very minimal experience with boats, but he was aware enough of how they generally worked to find the Floaterboat mildly disconcerting. Despite its speed, it had no motor, and therefore made no noise other than the _whoosh_ of the water they displaced. It also moved remarkably smoothly, the wind and changing scenery the only indicators of how quickly they were going. 

“This is bizarre,” he told Draco, who was seated to his left on one of the long, cushy benches along the side of the boat.

“I quite like it,” Draco replied, sipping from a glass of rosé, his other arm resting along the side of the boat and his legs stretched long in front of him, crossed at the ankle. He was wearing a pair of pristine coral twill shorts and a white polo shirt, and Harry couldn’t decide if he was amused by the Connecticut country club look or distressed at how well he pulled it off. He settled on taking a long swig of his beer and trying not to stare.

“I’m not saying I don’t like it,” he said, watching the scenery go by, “I’m just saying I feel like it should be… I don’t know, choppier, or something. If you close your eyes you can barely tell we’re moving.”

“That’s precisely why I like it,” Draco said. “I can drink my wine and enjoy the breeze without having to worry if my stomach is going to decide to expel itself from my body.”

“Say no more,” Harry grimaced. “Really. You’re going to put me off my beer.”

“And cheese,” Pansy added, settling a tray of cheeses, crackers, bread, and fruit on the long table at the middle of the craft. “I can’t eat whilst discussing your weak stomach, so be a dear and shut up.”

Draco flipped her two fingers, and Harry laughed.

“Ooh, are we eating?” Ron asked, sitting up from where he’d been lying out on a towel on the rear part of the deck where the shade didn’t reach. “I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving,” Ginny snorted, but she was already leaning around Pansy, stealing a grape and popping it in her mouth. “Ooh, those are fantastic.”

“They better be, for what we paid for them,” Greg grumbled. “The price of produce here is practically robbery.”

“Hey, remember that time we robbed a bank?” Ron grinned as he loaded a plate for himself. 

“We didn’t _rob a bank,_ Ron, we found and destroyed a dangerous artifact.” Hermione sounded exasperatedly fond. “And get enough food for me, too, please.”

“A dangerous artifact that we stole from a bank,” Ron countered, but he dutifully added more food to his plate before plopping back down next to Hermione.

“I still can’t believe you stole a fucking dragon.” Ginny settled onto the bench opposite Harry and Draco, crossing her legs and settling her plate across them. 

Draco snorted. “I can. It sounds exactly like something Potter would do.” He bumped his shoulder against Harry’s pointedly. 

“I would say I resent that, but you aren’t wrong,” Harry said, shrugging. 

“I wonder what happened to the dragon once you freed him?” Luna chimed in. She was perched next to Blaise in a flowy sundress; her long hair had been tied back in a braid after it had flown across his face one too many times. 

“I don’t know. He seemed pretty happy to be out.”

Blaise released the wheel for a moment to give Luna a one-armed hug. “I’m sure he’s perfectly alright, love.”

“I hope you’re right,” she sighed.

Returning his hand to its place on the wheel and turning in his seat to face the rest of the group, Blaise asked, “Are we ready to stop for a while?” They were out in the middle of the lake, expanses of sun-glittering water stretching out in all directions. Their house was just visible on the horizon. The idea had been that they would stop somewhere where the water was deeper so that they could swim while avoiding the worst of the slimy underwater plants that coated the lake’s floor.

“Yes please!” Ginny shoved a last chunk of cheese into her mouth and pulled her t-shirt over her head, stripping down to her bathing suit. 

She headed toward where the side of the boat would open out, but Pansy wrapped an arm around her waist and held her back. “Wait until we’ve actually stopped, you absolute lunatic.”

“You’re no fun,” Ginny sighed, but she twisted in Pansy’s arms to kiss her anyway.

Blaise brought the boat slowly to a stop, the impressive smoothness of which was ruined when he switched it off and it fell the last few inches into the water with a stomach-dropping _thump_.

“Nicely done,” Pansy smirked.

Blaise smirked right back, unphased. “You can comment on my sailing when you’ve learned how to so much as start the boat yourself, darling.” 

“Swimming now,” Ginny stated firmly, taking advantage of Pansy’s indignant distraction to slip out of her grip and swing the door open. As soon as it clicked into place, a ladder magically extended down into the water, providing a convenient exit and entry point. Ginny, of course, ignored it and jumped right in. When her head popped back up, she was gasping. “Fuck, it’s even colder than yesterday!” She stretched out so that she was floating on her back. “Feels amazing after the sun, though.”

Luna wandered over and dipped a bare toe in. “That is quite chilly,” she said contemplatively, “but I think it will feel rather nice.” Without bothering to remove her dress, she sat on the edge of the boat’s deck and slipped into the water.

“Alright,” Hermione said determinedly, getting up and stepping out of her shorts, leaving herself in a sensible one-piece swimsuit. “I have to swim at least once while I’m here.” 

“Hell yes you do,” Ron grinned. “Harry? Coming in?”

“In a bit.” Harry wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to subject himself to the icy water just yet, and anyway, he knew that Draco wouldn’t be getting in voluntarily. 

He had a half-plan in the back of his mind that involved luring Draco into a false sense of security before grabbing him around the waist and launching them both into the water. His face would be hilarious, Harry thought, grinning to himself. It definitely didn’t have anything to do with what that white shirt would look like soaked through, transparent and clinging. Nor did it have anything to do with the possibility of Draco giving up and stripping off his wet clothes altogether.

“What are you smiling at?” Blaise asked, peering at him with interest. “You look as though you’re plotting.”

“What on earth would I be plotting?” Harry asked, both amused and dismayed at how his expression had apparently given him away.

Blaise wiggled his eyebrows. “I’m sure I haven’t a clue, but I can’t wait to find out.”

Harry rolled his eyes and got up to serve himself some of the snacks, now that the ever-ravenous Weasleys were out of the way. “Draco, do you want anything while I’m up?” he asked. When he got no response, he turned back, only to see Draco looking distinctly green. “You okay?”

“I think I preferred the boat while it was still floating,” Draco answered weakly. 

“Technically it _is_ still floating, just differently,” Blaise pointed out, and Draco shot him a glare that was much less effective than usual, tinged with nausea as it was.

“Thanks _ever_ so for the clarification.”

“Do you want to go back?” Harry asked, concerned. 

“I don’t think I’m up for apparating,” Draco said, and he sounded truly awful.

“I can side-along you,” Harry assured him. “Guys,” he called out over the water, “Draco’s a bit seasick, so I’m going to take him back to the house.”

“Is it really seasickness if we’re on a lake?” Ginny asked.

“Not helpful, Gin.” Harry helped Draco to his feet, where he wavered unsteadily for a moment. “You ready?”

“I’m going to be sick,” Draco answered.

“Not on the boat!” Blaise cried, scandalized. Harry rolled his eyes and turned on the spot, visualizing the bathroom on the ground floor of the house.

He was glad of his prescience when they landed and Draco promptly fell to his knees over the toilet and vomited spectacularly. Harry grimaced, but crouched next to him, rubbing circles on his back. “What can I do?”

Draco spit and groaned. “Travel back in time and make me pack some fucking nausea potions?”

Harry bit his lip and thought. He was fairly certain that the house guide had mentioned an apothecary hidden from Muggle eyes at the back of the nearby convenience store. “Will you be alright if I pop out for a few minutes?” 

In response, Draco vomited once more before waving Harry feebly away.

Harry winced in sympathy. “Right. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He consulted the book quickly, relieved to see that he had remembered correctly. After that, it was just a quick drive into town, and he was back at Draco’s side in less than half an hour. Draco was still on the bathroom floor, although he was now seated against the wall, so Harry assumed that the worst was over.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked.

“Wretched. Where did you go?”

In response, Harry sank to the floor next to him and handed him the brown paper bag he was clutching. Draco opened it curiously and let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a moan of relief. “You are my hero. I adore you. You are my best friend, and Pansy can go fuck herself.”

Harry grinned. “Can I tell her that?”

“Absolutely not.” Draco pulled the bottle of anti-nausea potion from the bag and took a large gulp, closing his eyes and tilting his head back as it took effect. “Salazar, that’s so much better.” His head dropped to Harry’s shoulder in relief. “Really, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Harry said, feeling himself blush a little. It was rare that Draco was this genuine; usually any thanks he gave were couched in insults to hide any hint of vulnerability. “Ready to get up?”

“Yes, all better. I’m going to shower and brush my teeth, though, so get out.”

Harry laughed. “Good to have you back.” He pushed himself to his feet and extended a hand down to Draco. “Oh, I got the larger bottle so that you can use it before anything else we do that might trigger, you know—” He glanced pointedly at the toilet as he pulled Draco to standing and steadied him. 

Draco gave him a fond little smile that made Harry’s heart skip a beat or two. “Thank you. Now go away.” Placing a hand on Harry’s chest, he shoved him lightly, forcing him across the threshold before shutting the door in his face.

Harry rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help but grin.

*****

When the rest of their friends returned, Harry and Draco were chopping vegetables in preparation for dinner. The house was immediately filled with chatter and laughter as they wandered in, heading toward bathrooms and bedrooms to shower and change. The rest of the day passed pleasantly, with everyone coming together for food before splitting off for reading or talking or cards. Quite a few bottles of wine made the rounds, and Harry felt pleasantly buzzed when he finally headed to bed, knowing that he would be asleep within moments.

He had no idea how much later it was when he was startled awake by the sound of his door opening. “What?” he said groggily, trying valiantly to focus his eyes despite his lack of glasses and the almost-complete darkness of the room.

“It’s me,” came a quiet, hesitant voice as the door closed behind someone.

“Draco?”

“Obviously.”

“Why?” Harry shook his head, attempting, in vain, to clear it enough to form more than one-syllable sentences. Was he dreaming? 

The answer came in a sort of irritated whisper-yell. “Because it’s three in the fucking morning, and Greg’s snoring sounds like a goddamned Erumpent in heat when he’s drunk.” 

Draco was sneaking into his room in the middle of the night because… Greg snored?

Harry blinked silently at the vague silhouette he could now see highlighted just slightly by the moonlight filtering in through the glass doors. The wan light caught the barest hints of pale hair and skin but left the rest of him in shadow. 

Draco huffed at Harry’s silence. “Your bed is huge. I’m sleeping in here. Move over.” Despite his tone, he lingered at the edge of the bed. When Harry still didn’t respond, he added, sounding uncertain, “Unless you’d rather I slept on the couch, of course.”

Harry blinked a few more times for good measure before deciding this very well _might_ be a wine-induced dream and opting to just go with it. “Right,” he yawned, scooting further toward the sliding doors. “Come on, then.” He allowed his eyes to fall shut again and felt the mattress dip beside him. Still unsure if he was awake or not, and not entirely certain whether he hoped he was or wasn’t, he curled up on his side and listened to Draco’s breathing slow.

*****


	5. Wednesday

Harry awoke to a warm, heavy weight across his chest and the tickle of fine hair against his nose. He experienced exactly six seconds of confusion before the pieces fell into place and his whole body tensed. 

_Shit._ Draco Malfoy—friend, confidant, and very attractive man whom Harry had spent a _lot_ of time trying not to dwell on the attractiveness of—was in his bed. Draco Malfoy was in his bed, _on top of him,_ apparently still sound asleep. Draco Malfoy was in his bed, on top of him, sound asleep, and Harry was semi-hard and also _really_ had to pee.

It was not, in short, an ideal situation. 

He tried to shift subtly, desperate not to wake Draco but even more desperate to get out of this predicament before it got more awkward than it already was. He almost thought he’d managed it for a few seconds, having slid ninety percent of his body free. That last ten percent, however, included trying to get Draco’s head from the very edge of Harry’s shoulder onto the mattress below—which, it turned out, was quite enough movement to startle him awake.

Draco’s eye snapped open, and Harry witnessed the impressively rapid succession of expressions from irritation to realization to mortification before he squeezed his eyes back shut and groaned. “Fuck.”

“Er, good morning?” Harry tried. Now that Draco was awake, he was petrified at the idea of standing and drawing attention to the... situation... happening below his waist. He tried to think of the least sexy things he could imagine, but found it rather difficult to concentrate with a sleep-rumpled Draco Malfoy _in his bed_ less than a foot away from him, especially when he could still feel the ghost of his heat on his skin.

“Morning,” Draco grimaced, eyes still scrunched shut. 

“Right. So. You probably want to head downstairs before anyone else is up if you don’t want—”

“Right. Yes.” Draco finally opened his eyes and pulled himself into a seated position. His face was rather pink, and Harry tried very hard not to find it appealing. “I’ll just…” He gestured awkwardly at the door and cleared his throat.

“Right.”

“Right.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” 

They sat there next to each other in a discomfited sort of impasse before Harry—realizing that the extreme awkwardness had finally convinced his erection that this was _not_ the time, and that it was now safe for him to rise—clambered out of the bed. “Well, I’m just… bathroom,” he said eloquently before sort of run-walking to the en suite and shutting the door tightly behind him. He managed to hold back his groan of embarrassment until he heard the sounds of Draco shuffling out of the room and closing the door quietly behind him. Fucking hell.

Harry leant against the door and closed his eyes for a few moments, trying to sort out what the hell to do now, before he gave it up for a lost cause and went to pee. By the time he’d brushed his teeth and showered, he’d come to the conclusion that the best thing to do would be to pretend it had never happened.

*****

Oddly, this course of action seemed to work perfectly well. No one said anything strange to Harry when he entered the kitchen, and no one gave him any knowing looks while he ate breakfast. He was tempted to ask Draco if anyone had seen him as he came downstairs—it hadn’t been particularly early, so he wasn’t sure everyone would still have been asleep—but eventually he decided that “pretend it never happened” would be his best bet to avoid awkward conversations with Draco, as well, so he opted to leave it alone.

The plan for the day was a hike through the dense forest stretching out in every direction from the house. There was a trailhead half a mile’s walk down the road from them, according to the house guide, so Hermione had taken it upon herself to map a route for them. She’d also inspected everyone’s outfits before they departed, sending people back if they didn’t have heavy enough trousers or long enough socks (“There is poison ivy out there, and I’m not dealing with any of you whinging if you walk through it accidentally”), and doused them all in Muggle bug spray (“I don’t trust the charms we know; some of the insects are entirely different species, and some of them carry diseases!”). Blaise had pouted when she’d vetoed his outfit choice—which had involved a pair of _very_ short shorts belonging to Ginny—but he’d eventually conceded to practicality when Draco had begrudgingly offered a pair of extremely slim-cut jeans and Ginny had traded out her shorts for what was, on her, an oversized flannel shirt. On Blaise, it fitted in a way that read more “lumberjack stripper” than anything else, which seemed to please him immensely. 

Eventually, despite numerous setbacks, they made it to the trail. Harry hadn’t been particularly attracted to the idea of hiking, considering that most of the time he’d spent in woods in his youth he’d been running for his life, but he had to admit that it was beautiful once they got going. 

The trail was wide enough to walk two or three abreast and was comprised of packed dirt and flat rocks that were used as sort of makeshift steps along the way. Fir and spruce grew in abundance on both sides, interspersed with graceful birch trees, all towering above them and shading the path, letting through beams of golden sun that glinted off the drifting pollen before patterning the ground ahead of them. The forest floor was carpeted in moss and scattered with seedlings and fallen branches. The air was cool and damp, and the spicy pine smell that Harry had noticed around their cabin was more intense, almost sharp as he breathed it in. 

Harry lingered near the back of the group as Hermione forged a path forward, wielding her field guide and pointing out different plants and birds as they went, keeping up a running commentary on the ecosystem. He loved her enthusiasm, but he was content to soak in the atmosphere without putting a name to every bit of wildlife. Also, despite its beauty, as they delved deeper into the woods the hike became increasingly grueling, with the path growing steeper the further they went.

“I don’t know how she does it.” Ron’s voice came from Harry’s left, pulling him out of the almost-meditative state he’d fallen into as they walked. His breathing was heavy and his brow was damp with sweat. “She’s not even a little bit winded.”

“I know,” Harry grinned, using the hem of his shirt to wipe his face. “Mind over matter, I guess?”

Ron smiled fondly. “That’s my girl.” Harry bumped his shoulder against Ron’s and they continued apace.

Even Hermione Granger had to run out of steam eventually, however, so when they’d been hiking for close to an hour and reached a small clearing, she didn’t put up a fight as everyone collapsed in various states of exhaustion, sitting on thick fallen tree trunks or dropping flat onto their backs on the ground. Several people began removing layers of clothing, eager to relieve the excessive body heat that had built over the last stretch of their hike, and Harry joined them, pulling his sweat-soaked tee shirt over his head and sighing in relief as a cool breeze caressed his overheated skin. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Draco watching him, but when he turned his head, he was looking contemplatively up at the canopy of leaves above them.

“Who’s got the water?” Pansy asked tiredly, apparently too worn out for sarcasm or sass.

“Here.” Greg pulled open the pack he’d unceremoniously dumped on the ground when he’d sat, pulling out rather more water bottles than should have fit and tossing them out until everyone had one.

“Cheers,” Blaise said, lifting his head from the ground just enough to take several deep gulps before collapsing once more. He had also stripped his shirt off, and Harry thought amusedly that this time it might actually be for practicality and not aesthetic. Even Ginny seemed tired, which was really quite an achievement. She was slumped on the ground with her back against the stump that Pansy had perched upon, and for once was not needling her brother or trying to get people up and moving. 

“How much further were you planning to drag us, Granger?” Draco asked from the log he’d draped himself over. “Just an approximation will do.” His shirt was riding up, exposing sweat-damp skin, and Harry desperately tried not to imagine licking it. He groaned internally. Even being bone-tired wasn’t enough to keep him from ogling his friend anymore. Stupid accidental cuddling, further degrading carefully-built (but already thinning) mental walls. 

“I don’t think it’s much further,” Hermione answered, sounding less than entirely confident. “The path’s gotten quite steep, which should mean we’re nearing the summit. Once we reach the top, there’s supposed to be a spectacular view.” She cast a guilty eye over her obviously-exhausted companions. “But we can Apparate back, I suppose, if everyone is done.” 

Ron struggled to sit up and patted her knee. “Nah, babe. I’ll keep going with you. Just give me like… ten more minutes.” Hermione smiled gratefully at him.

“Yeah, I’ll stay,” Greg agreed. “Be a bit of a waste to give up now.”

A chorus of agreement (albeit with various levels of enthusiasm) came from the rest of the scattered group, and Hermione let out a relieved-sounding breath.

“Wonderful. Does anyone want a snack before we move on?”

“God, yes,” Ginny and Ron spoke in unison, before turning to glare at one another, causing Harry to snort and Hermione to try to bite back a laugh. 

“I packed sandwiches and energy bars in Greg’s satchel,” Hermione told them, “so take whatever you’d like.”

Greg dumped the contents of the bag in the middle of the clearing, letting everyone scramble for their own food rather than trying to hand everything out himself. Harry waited for the initial rush to die down before grabbing himself a roast beef sandwich and some sort of peanut butter granola bar. He had just unwrapped his sandwich and was in the process of taking a bite when a loud rustling nearby caught his attention.

“Um, guys?”

Harry wasn’t the only one who had noticed; Draco and Hermione were looking in the same direction as Harry, expressions concerned. The rustling was coming closer, and it was moving fast. By now, everyone was watching in various states of unease. Harry pulled his wand from his pocket and cast a hasty shield charm over them all, and several of the others followed suit just before a huge wildcat broke through the brush into the clearing and bounced off of the bubble of charms. It recovered quickly, shaking off its disorientation, and began to prowl a circle around them.

“Fuck,” Harry heard Draco mutter. “Fuck fucking fuck.”

“Translate?” Harry asked quietly.

“Wampus cat,” Hermione breathed. “Don’t meet its eyes; they’d rumored to have legilimency and hypnotic abilities.”

As everyone else sat frozen, Luna stood and moved toward the boundary of their shield, peering at the cat before smiling brightly back at them all. “It’s okay, you can lower the shields.”

“Er, Luna…” Harry tried, unsure how to express just how bad of an idea that was.

Luna looked over her shoulder at him. “Don’t worry, we’re safe. It’s just Reginald.”

“ _Reginald?”_ Hermione squeaked. 

Before anyone could stop her, Luna stepped casually past the barrier and up to the massive cat, reaching out to scratch behind its ears. As the rest of them looked on in shock, the animal rubbed its head against her torso, emitting a sound that was almost like— 

“Is he _purring?_ ” Draco asked, sounding horrified.

“Reginald is a she,” Luna informed him, “and of course she’s purring. She loves ear scratches.” 

After a few tense moments, Blaise stood up and made his way cautiously over. “Would you like to introduce us?” he asked Luna. Harry couldn’t help but admire his bravery and trust in his friend’s judgment, no matter how questionable it seemed. Luna had never steered any of them wrong, but Harry still wasn’t keen to try his luck befriending a two hundred pound predator.

“Of course! Reginald, this is my friend Blaise; Blaise, this is my friend Reginald.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Blaise said, addressing the cat. He looked over at Luna. “What should I do?”

“Oh, just hold your hand out for her to sniff. Once she’s familiar with your scent you can pet her.”

“She’s like Hagrid with a Hippogriff,” Draco whispered from where he’d managed to make his way to Harry’s side. 

Harry grinned. “Just don’t insult it, and you should be fine, then.” Draco pinched him, and Harry laughed. This was the first real interaction he and Draco had had since their awkward morning encounter, and Harry was relieved that Draco also seemed content to just forget all about it—or, at least, pretend to. 

When Blaise was successfully petting Reginald, Harry decided it was safe to let his shield down, and the others slowly followed suit. Luna had each of them ‘meet’ Reginald separately, holding their hands out so that she could familiarize herself with each of their scents. The whole thing was surreal, Harry thought. Obviously-magical creatures were one thing, but the Wampus Cat looked so much like a run-of-the-mill mountain lion that it seemed extraordinarily uncanny to be interacting with it like this.

“Reginald is very pleased to meet you all,” Luna told them as they finished their procession of introductions, “and would like to accompany us to the summit, if you don’t mind.”

“Would she?” Ron still looked a bit shell shocked at the whole experience; his expression was giving Harry flashbacks to when they met Norberta the Norwegian Ridgeback, and he could help but grin.

“If you don’t mind,” Luna reiterated, stroking the cat’s wide head absently. It was still purring. 

“Does she really use Legilimency, then?” Hermione asked, her curiosity outweighing her caution.

“A bit,” Luna answered as though this was a completely unremarkable fact. “It’s not very strong, but we can understand each other.”

“Weird,” Ginny breathed, looking delighted. 

“Out of curiosity,” Pansy remarked, “how exactly did you come to make Reginald’s acquaintance?”

“Oh, I found her in the woods on Monday. She’d injured her leg, and I patched her right up. She’s been a lovely guide while I’ve explored.”

“Of course she has.” Pansy shook her head before brushing the dirt from her backside and hands. “Shall we, then?”

*****

Thankfully, Hermione had not been wrong, and they had reached the end of the trail barely ten minutes later, Reginald loping along beside them. The view had, indeed, been spectacular—they had ended up at the edge of a towering cliff, huge tracts of untouched forest spread out far below them, more mountains rising on the other side of the gorge. A wide river cut through the middle, the sun reflecting blindingly up at them. Once they’d looked their fill, the group made the unanimous decision to Apparate back to the house. They had done quite enough hiking for one day.

Once home, there was a scramble for the three showers, everyone wanting to rid themselves of the accumulated dirt, sweat, and bug spray. Harry, by virtue of having the Master Suite to himself, was able to claim first go with no trouble. He basked in the multiple streams of water, first cool as he tried to bring his elevated body temperature back down, and then blissfully hot to ease the tightness of his muscles. He sighed happily as the steam billowed around him, luxuriating in the heat. He should get one of these for Grimmauld, he thought absently.

Soon, however, he forced himself to relinquish his private oasis, unable to bring himself to make eight people share two showers—especially since the other two were nowhere near as nice as his. When he’d toweled himself off and slipped on a fresh pair of jeans and a tee shirt, he poked his head out the door to see Draco leaning sullenly against the wall next to the other upstairs bathroom, a towel draped over his arm. 

“No luck?” Harry asked him.

“Blaise managed to snag the downstairs shower as soon as Greg finished, and he’ll be ages. As for this one—” He gestured behind himself “—Ginevra and Pansy have taken it over. _Together._ ”

“They really never stop, do they?” Harry commented, not sure whether he was impressed, amused, annoyed, or some combination of the three. “Did they at least use a silencing charm?”

“Yes, but I suspect it was more so that they couldn’t hear me telling them to hurry up than so that we didn’t have to hear whatever they’re up to.”

Harry laughed. “Oh well. I’m done in here if you want to sneak in before anyone else notices.”

Draco’s face positively lit up. “You are my favorite person.”

“A fact that you seem to forget that every time I beat you at something but remember when I’ve got something you want.”

“You never beat me at anything and you often have something I want,” Draco said dismissively as he ducked past Harry, closing the bathroom door before Harry could point out that he did, in fact, beat Draco at many things, quite regularly. 

Shaking his head, Harry made his way downstairs, thinking that it might be time to pull out one of those nice wheat beers they’d found that went so well with a slice of orange. He’d barely reached the bottom, however, when an ear-piercing shriek had him rushing back up again.

“Draco?!” he called, quickly assessing the direction the sound was coming from. “Draco! Are you okay?” Over the sounds of the shower running, a string of curse words interspersed with yelps of what sounded like pain was his only answer. Without thinking, Harry slid the door of the bathroom open.

Draco was pressed in a corner of the shower, on tip-toe, trying to avoid the sprays of water coming from every direction. His eyes shot up at Harry’s entrance, frantic. “There’s something wrong with this shower!” he yelled, sounding panicked. 

“What?!”

“The shower!! It’s— it’s burning, and it’s _freezing_ , and the pressure is like _knives,_ I can’t—” He looked close to tears, and Harry suddenly remembered the complicated instructions the house guide had included that he hadn’t thought to have Draco review.

“Shit, hold on.” Harry stepped through the open panel of the huge shower, wincing at the contrasting streams of hot and frigid water as he fumbled with the knobs until they returned to a warm, gentle rain. He let out a breath, pushing his once-again-soaking hair out of his face. “There, now it should be—” 

The rest of the sentence was lost as Harry turned to Draco and, in the absence of the adrenaline that had flooded him at the idea of danger, became suddenly, horrifyingly, aware of just how very naked the man was. Naked and _wet_ , rivulets of water trailing down his lithe chest, over his stomach, down to— 

Draco let out a squeaking sort of sound as his hands flew down to cover himself. Harry’s eyes shot up guiltily to where Draco was staring at him in wide eyed mortification, a brilliant blush spreading over his face and down his chest. “I— it was _really cold,”_ he said nonsensically, and it took Harry’s overwhelmed brain a moment to make the connection. 

He flushed at being caught out, but thankfully managed to bite back his instinctive response that there was certainly nothing that Draco needed to make excuses for. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Um, it should be fine now,” he said, chagrined at how rough his voice came out. “Sorry, I didn’t think to show you how it worked.” He stood there, dripping wet in his clothes, unsure what to do. 

“Right. Well. Thank you.” Draco was frozen in place, obviously just as disconcerted as Harry. Something about the look on his face snapped Harry out of his stupor, and he shook his head, clearing it.

“Right. I’ll let you get back to it.” He stepped back out of the shower, thankfully remembering to grab a dry towel on his way out of the bathroom. Trailing water behind him, he stumbled out the door and slid it shut behind him, closing his eyes. This day, he decided, was trying to kill him. 

*****


	6. Thursday

They’d spent some time in the hot tub again the night before, blissfully easing the tension out of their tired muscles, before turning in fairly early. Draco had not joined Harry in his bed again, a fact for which Harry could not decide whether to be relieved or disappointed. 

He woke up on Thursday morning to the peaceful sound of raindrops pattering against windows and leaves. Blinking blearily, he pushed his glasses onto his face and climbed out of bed, wandering over to the sliding glass doors out to his balcony. A steady rain fell from a blanket of velvety grey clouds, the water making the wood planks of the balcony shine. It wouldn’t be a day for outdoor adventures, but Harry found himself smiling. The idea of a cozy day in sounded ideal after the string of activities they’d undertaken thus far this week. 

Pulling his favorite warm, worn old hoodie over his head, Harry opted not to change out of his soft plaid pajama bottoms and padded downstairs, unsure of the time without the rays of the sun to guide him. The large main room appeared deserted when he reached it, the doors to the two bedrooms still shut, so he thought it must still be fairly early. He lit the fireplace and turned to go make himself a cup of tea only to find Draco fast asleep on one of the sofas facing the windows, curled under a blanket, mouth slightly open and hair disheveled, looking extraordinarily vulnerable. 

Resisting the urge to push a few of the nearly-white strands out of Draco’s face, Harry crept into the kitchen, trying not to make enough noise to disturb him. He began preparing his own tea, making sure to put a silencing charm on the kettle. After a moment, he decided to make one for Draco as well; he could just put it under a stasis charm for whenever he woke up.

Despite his best efforts, when Harry returned to the sofas—tea in hand—he saw that Draco’s eyes were cracked open, watching him blearily. When he caught Harry’s gaze, he patted the cushions by his head, and Harry accepted the unspoken invitation. Draco lifted his head as Harry set the two mugs of tea down, making just enough room for him to sit before dropping his head back down onto Harry’s thigh and immediately closing his eyes again. 

Harry smiled fondly. He loved when Draco was like this, casually affectionate. He’d been worried that their multiple unfortunate encounters the day before would put a stop to it, at least for awhile; the fact that they hadn’t, he thought, was probably a testament to the strength of the friendship they’d built over the years. He was immensely grateful for it. He gave in to his earlier instinct and ran a hand through Draco’s uncharacteristically messy hair, making him hum in sleepy contentment. Picking up his mug and a mystery novel that someone had left on the end table, he settled in and began to read.

He was several chapters in, Draco still fast asleep with his head on Harry’s lap, when the others began to trickle into the room in various states of drowsy disarray. Everyone seemed to have had the same idea as Harry, opting for pajamas or cozy loungewear. No one gave Harry and Draco a second look, although Greg did offer to refill Harry’s tea while he was in the kitchen, which Harry accepted gratefully. 

The whistle of a kettle was soon followed by the scents of tea and coffee as people made themselves hot drinks and settled into chairs and sofas. Draco woke again as the quiet sounds of morning filled the room, sitting up with a grumble and going back to leaning against Harry after claiming his still-hot mug of tea from him. When Ron and Hermione joined them, yawning and tousled, Ron headed immediately to the cupboard and then refrigerator and set about making a veritable mountain of pancakes.

Eventually, everyone was full of maple syrup and caffeine and began to discuss what to do with the day. They all seemed content with keeping things low key for now. “It’s going to clear up later, so perhaps we can have a bonfire tonight,” Luna told them, and no one questioned it. She was probably right; she usually was.

Harry and Greg decided to put together a stew to let simmer until dinner, while Ron and Draco dug out a chess set and Hermione, Blaise, and Luna opted to try out the dart board. Pansy and Ginny retreated once more to their bedroom, Draco yelling after them to “remember a fucking silencing charm, you shameless bints,” causing Ginny to flip two fingers at him without turning while Pansy gave hime a salacious wink and a smirk. 

“Ugh,” Draco commented as they disappeared, and Ron gave a grimace of agreement.

Once the stew was on the stovetop, Greg decided to poke through the house guide for instructions on how to use the fire pit. Harry joined his friends in the games room, where Hermione was thoroughly trouncing both Blaise and Luna at darts, the magical scoreboard showing her a good hundred points ahead of either of them on their race to zero. Ron and Draco soon found them, returning the chess set to a cabinet in favor of watching Hermione destroy her competition. 

Once she’d won, they split into teams of three, Harry, Ron, and Hermione partnering up and promptly crushing the others, of whom only Draco appeared to have any skill at all. While he grumbled about unfair advantages (“what, you mean having hand-eye coordination?” Harry had teased, earning himself a poke to the side that left him laughing and skittering out of the way) Ginny and Pansy wandered in, followed a bit later by Greg. 

They whiled away the hours on darts and pool. Harry contemplated faking terrible form at the billiards table just to get Draco to curve his body over Harry’s to guide him—as he had for Luna at one point before she decided she preferred darts—but his competitive streak won out, and they ended up in a fierce best-of-three battle for domination. At some point, Blaise disappeared to play bartender, coming back with a variety of complicated cocktails tailored to each of their specific tastes, giving the room the air of a private club of some sort. 

Harry felt warm and happy, surrounded by some of his favorite people in the world, just relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. They’d all come so far, he thought, as he watched Pansy and Hermione bicker good naturedly about the rules of some obscure darts game he hadn’t heard of while Ron and Blaise appeared deep in conversation about what must have been something to do with mixology, judging by the way Blaise was gesturing at his glass and Ron was eyeing it thoughtfully.

“Hey! Potter!” came Draco’s teasing voice, snapping Harry out of his reverie. “No zoning out on me while I’m winning. Unless you’d like to forfeit?”

Harry grinned. “You wish.”

*****

They had the stew as a late lunch/early dinner, and by the time they’d finished and digested, the rain had—as Luna had predicted—stopped, and the sky had cleared to reveal a beautiful sunset. Greg got the fire started, and before long, tall flames were licking up into a sky darkening into an inky black, studded with innumerable twinkling stars. 

After a handful of precautionary drying charms, the rest of them began to settle onto the benches surrounding the fire pit, Draco once again claiming the seat beside Harry. The smell of crackling woodfire mixed with the intoxicating scents of damp earth and balsam, and Harry wished that he could bottle it and take it with him when they returned to England. Maybe he could, he pondered; he’d have to ask Hermione if she knew of a way.

Speaking of Hermione, she was emerging from the nearby trees with an armful of long, thin branches, looking pleased with herself. 

“What’re you doing, ‘Mione?” Ron asked curiously. “We’ve got plenty of firewood, haven’t we?”

“These aren’t for the fire; they’re for s’mores.”

“For… sorry?”

“S’mores!” She looked around the circle, but was met by a collection of blank faces. “Really? None of you? Not even you, Harry?”

Harry shrugged. “Sorry. If it’s a Muggle thing, it’s not something the Dursleys talked about.”

She sighed. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t have.” Her face immediately brightened, however. “Well. You’re all in for a treat, then. Ron, come help me?”

The two disappeared into the house, returning shortly with several boxes of odd, unfamiliar-looking rectangular biscuits, bars of chocolate, and bags of marshmallows.

“S’mores,” Hermione told them, her voice taking on the tone it tended to when she was excited to share her knowledge about something, “are a Muggle campfire treat. They’re actually fairly American, so I suppose it’s not surprising you aren’t familiar with them. I learned about them from an American film when I was small and insisted that my parents make them with me the next time we went camping.”

She opened the various ingredients and demonstrated, skewering a marshmallow on one of the long sticks (after giving it a good _Scourgify_ ) and roasting it carefully over the fire, keeping it just at the edge of flames and rotating it slowly so that it turned an even golden brown around the outside. Once it was done to her satisfaction, she sandwiched it with a square of chocolate between two halves of one of the biscuits before taking a huge, un-Hermione-like bite, grinning as she licked melted chocolate off her lower lip. “S’mores!” 

Soon, all of them were roasting their marshmallows to various degrees of success. Draco was following Hermione’s exacting standards, brow furrowed as he aimed for the perfect shade of brown. Ginny lit several on fire in turn, crusting them in a layer of crunchy carbon before blowing them out and eating them plain, grinning as Pansy rolled her eyes at her. Ron started out trying to emulate his girlfriend, but evidently got impatient, because soon he was blowing out flames on a marshmallow that was half toasty brown, half black and burned. 

Luna was the first of them to actually put together one of the little sandwiches. “Oh, that’s lovely,” she said on a sigh after her first bite.

Ron followed shortly thereafter, Hermione having rolled her eyes fondly before helping him squash his unevenly roasted marshmallow between the biscuits and chocolate. “Bloody hell,” he managed to mumble around a mouthful. “That’s amazing.”

Sounds of enjoyment came from around the circle as people assembled and sampled their treats. A deep, content hum emanated from next to him, and Harry turned to see Draco sucking melted chocolate off of his fingers, eyes half-closed in apparent bliss. _Fucking hell_ , he thought. That was just— 

“Harry, your skewer is on fire,” Hermione said from his other side, amused.

“What? Oh, fuck!” Harry pulled his stick back toward himself, blowing on it to extinguish the fire that had melted his marshmallow entirely off and proceeded to lick its way down the wood. When he looked up, Pansy was giving him a knowing smirk from across the way. Harry blushed and looked away. “Do you have any extras?” he asked Hermione, desperately hoping that the redness of his cheeks would be attributed to the warmth of the fire. 

“Lucky for you,” she told him, handing another skewer over, but she was smiling in a way that made Harry very sure that she knew exactly what had just happened and was more than a little entertained by it. 

“Oh shut up,” he grumbled, and she finally let out the laugh that she had obviously been holding back. Harry rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help but smile. 

*****


	7. Friday

“I can’t believe we’re leaving tomorrow,” Ron said sadly. “I thought a week would feel like _ages_.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Weasley, but I agree with you.” Draco was perched on one of the bar stools, sipping on a steaming mug of coffee. Ron—very maturely, in Harry’s opinion—did not respond other than with a roll of his eyes.

“Anything people want to make sure they do before we leave?” Hermione asked the group at large.

“I wouldn’t mind taking the boat out again,” Greg offered, and Blaise, Pansy, and Ginny agreed. 

Draco shuddered. “Hard pass.”

“You’ve got your potion now, though,” Harry pointed out, ignoring the smirk that Pansy shot him. He hadn’t done anything exceptional by buying it; any good friend would have done the same.

“Still too traumatic.” Harry snorted at Draco’s dramatics, but let it go.

“Well, I think I might like to do a bit more hiking,” Hermione said, before biting her lip and adding sheepishly, “well, some walking in the woods, anyway.”

Luna smiled. “I’ll join you. I’d like to spend a bit more time with Reginald before we go.” 

“Ron?” Hermione asked hopefully.

Ron grimaced. “Sorry babe; I still hurt from yesterday. I think I’m for the boat. Harry?”

Harry didn’t particularly feel like hiking or going back out on the Floaterboat, but there was one thing he’d meant to do and hadn’t gotten a chance to. “I actually think I want to try the kayaks.” He did a quick survey and realized that only one other person hadn’t made a decision yet. “Draco, you up for it?”

Draco looked skeptical. “I highly doubt that will be any less sickening than the Floaterboat.”

“Yeah, but you do have the potion, and you don’t have any ‘ _trauma’_ from kayaking that I know of.” Draco still looked unconvinced, so Harry threw in a sweetener that he knew Draco wouldn’t be able to resist. “We could race. Winner picks the prize.” He smirked. “Unless you think you can’t beat me.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed, and Harry knew he’d won. “You’re on, Potter.”

*****

“Do you even know how to kayak?” Draco asked, eyeing the flimsy-looking crafts warily.

“Of course I do!” Harry was only exaggerating a little bit. He had been kayaking exactly once, several years ago, for a very short amount of time at a free event in London. Still, he knew the basics. “It’s not that hard. You get in, you paddle.”

Draco poked at one of the kayaks with a toe and watched it bob. “They don’t seem very stable.”

“I’ll put a charm on it to keep it steady while you get in,” Harry reassured him. “But it’s not a big deal if you do fall in. They’re designed to be easy to get out of if you roll, and we’ll use flotation charms for backup.”

“They roll frequently enough for that to be a necessary feature?!”

Harry grinned. “It’s part of the fun! Anyway, when I went before I didn’t fall in. At least the water here is clean; I learned on the Thames. If I was brave enough to risk it there, it would be pretty embarrassing for you not to be up to trying here, don’t you think?”

Draco glared. “Just cast the charms.”

Even with the charm, Draco appeared unwilling to try to get into the boat, hesitating until finally Harry rolled his eyes and sat down on the pier, dangling his legs into the water and leaning to hold the kayak still manually. Finally, Draco stepped in with one foot before apparently losing his nerve, freezing awkwardly with his other leg still on the pier and his crotch subsequently very close to Harry’s face. 

Harry could feel himself turning bright red, and must have made some sort of sound, because Draco snapped out of it and smirked knowingly at Harry before moving to climb the rest of the way in. His eyes were still on Harry, however, and he almost managed to tumble right over the other side in his distraction. Harry had to drop his grip on the boat to grab him under the arms and help him slide the rest of the way into the seat. Draco’s face flushed in embarrassment, which made Harry feel quite a bit better.

Once Harry had climbed into his own boat—without incident, much to Draco’s apparent chagrin, based on his glare—they spent a few minutes experimenting, working out the best depth to row at and how to turn smoothly. It was actually pretty intuitive, and Draco picked it up in barely more time than it took Harry to reacclimate. 

Harry knew that Draco had gotten comfortable when he started intentionally knocking his boat into Harry’s like they were bumper cars, looking mischievous. “Well, are we racing or not?” he asked with a smirk.

Harry grinned and pointed at a sandy patch further around the lake: not fully across—even he wasn’t cocky enough to attempt that distance—but a good ways along. “First one to the beach?”

“You’re on.”

Once they’d picked up speed, it was remarkably like flying, albeit quite a bit harder on the arms. Still, the smooth rush forward was familiar and exhilarating, especially with Draco racing alongside. The smell of lake water and fresh air, combined with the heat of the sun and the cool of the wind and the sound of Draco laughing and swearing beside him as Harry pulled ahead, was everything Harry could have asked for on their last day away from the real world.

The bank they’d chosen to end their race hadn’t seemed unreasonably far when they’d started, but as they rowed on, Harry began to feel like he might have overestimated the stamina of two people who weren’t used to this sort of exercise. The shore didn’t appear to be getting any closer, but Harry’s arms were tiring, and each pull against the water felt increasingly difficult. He felt himself slowing as the muscles of his back and shoulders started to burn and his hands began to cramp.

“How’re you doing over there?” he called over to Draco, who had gone red in the face. 

“Peachy.” Draco’s teeth were gritted, and he freed one hand from the paddle just long enough to wipe the sweat from his brow, which caused his kayak to flounder slightly. “Fuck!”

Harry wanted to laugh, but he didn’t have the energy. With a groan, he let his paddle fall flat across his lap. “I need a break.”

“Conceding?” Draco asked. His boat had drifted in a circle and he was pointed in the wrong direction, but seemed only halfhearted in his efforts to get himself turned back around. 

“No.” Harry rolled his neck and grimaced. “Maybe.”

Draco laughed. “This is awful. Should we turn around?” 

“Depends. Are we closer to the finish line or the dock?”

“Hmm.” Draco looked back and forth a few times before sighing. “We’re probably two-thirds of the way to the beach.”

“Damn.” Harry tipped his head back, squinting up at the sky. “Rest here for a bit, row to the beach, and Apparate back?”

Draco let out a relieved-sounding sigh. “Merlin. Yes, please.”

They bobbed in place for a while in companionable silence, steering only to keep themselves from drifting too far off course. When Harry felt that he’d let his muscles rest for long enough, he rolled his shoulders and back and pointed himself toward the shore once more. “Okay. Let’s go.”

By the time they reached their destination, everything burned. Draco claimed to have won, since his kayak bumped against the shore first, but he’d been too scared to try to dismount on his own, so Harry had climbed out onto the shore first before dragging Draco in his kayak up after him with a smug grin and declaring himself the winner because he’d technically been first onto the beach. 

They bickered good-naturedly for a bit as they flopped inelegantly on their backs in the sand before deciding to call it a draw. Harry closed his eyes and let the breeze soothe his sweat-damp skin. Every muscle along his back and arms felt hot and tingly, and the skin of his hands felt raw. 

“So, what’d you think?” he asked lightly, laughing as Draco groaned next to him.

“I think you’re a fucking sadist. You actually think that’s _fun_?” Draco rolled onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow to look down at Harry.

“It was at first,” Harry answered defensively, but then he snorted. “But I also don’t think I was out for long enough for it to hurt like that when I went before.”

Draco let out an amused huff and rested the side of his head in his palm. “Of course you weren’t. Why do I let you talk me into things?”

Harry smirked. “Because I know all of your weaknesses, and you’re easy to manipulate.” 

“I hate you.” Harry felt a hand smack halfheartedly at his chest, and he reflexively snapped a hand up to catch it. 

“You don’t,” he said, smiling as the hand splayed over his chest.

“Ugh.”

*****

After resting for a while, they eventually collected their kayaks and Apparated back to the boathouse before heading back to the main house to clean up and recover. Harry took a long, hot shower before spreading a salve on his stinging hands and flopping onto his bed for a nap. He was going to miss naps, he thought, as he felt himself drift off. He should plan more naps in his daily life once they got back. 

Eventually, everybody returned from their various adventures, and they had a nice dinner together before deciding that they wanted to do one more bonfire before they had to return to reality. They sat around the fire sipping on their last eclectic selection of beers as the sun set, the air cooled, and the chorus of crickets and other nighttime creatures began. 

It was nice, Harry thought as he looked around the circle, to have had this time with everyone. Hermione was curled into Ron’s side across the way, looking sleepy. Ron chatted with Greg while keeping a protective arm around her, and Harry smiled. He was so happy for them sometimes that it made his heart ache. 

Near them, Blaise and Pansy were deep in conversation about something, while Ginny and Draco seemed to be having some sort of very intense debate, if their flashing eyes and gesticulating hands were anything to go by. Harry watched them for a while, his chest feeling a bit tight at the way the firelight flickered across Draco’s almost-white hair and high cheekbones. It was really fucking inconvenient how beautiful he was. 

Luna spoke from next to Harry, surprising him out of his reverie. “He seems happy, doesn’t he?”

“He does,” Harry said, just tipsy enough not to bother trying to lie about where he’d been looking. There was never any point in lying to Luna, anyway.

“And what about you?”

“What about me?” Harry turned to look at Luna, who was rolling her beer bottle against her lower lip consideringly.

“Are you happy?”

Harry frowned. “Of course I am.”

She observed him for a few moments and then shrugged. “Okay.”

Harry shook his head in confusion, but then heard Ron call his name from across the way and got up to go see what he wanted, quickly forgetting the odd moment.

The fire burned on and the conversations continued, light and pleasant and carefree. It had probably been at least an hour, if not longer, when Ginny observed glumly that they’d run out of beer.

“Oh, no, hang on,” Harry said, climbing to his feet from where he’d been sitting with Ron and Hermione, discussing a project that she wanted to embark on and that Ron really wished that she wouldn’t. Frankly, he was happy for the chance to step out of the middle of it. “There are more tucked away in one of the cupboards, I’ll go grab them. Be right back.” 

He brushed his hands off on his jeans before heading inside. As he made his way through the mudroom toward the kitchen, however, Harry found himself yanked into the games room by the neck of his shirt. For a panicked moment, he cursed himself for leaving his wand in his bedroom earlier. When he whipped around, however, it was only to see a rather irritated-looking Pansy with her arms now folded across her chest.

“Pansy, what the fuck?!” he complained, trying to force his heart to slow. He hadn’t even realized that she wasn’t outside anymore.

“Everyone thinks we should just let you idiots figure yourselves out on your own,” she said with a glare, “but it’s our last night here, and I’ve had rather a lot to drink, and I am going to murder you both if you don’t get your shit together.”

“What?” Harry asked. He felt as though he’d come in at the middle of a conversation. “What are you even talking about?”

She rolled her entire head back in apparent disbelief. “Oh my god, how are you this stupid?” she muttered.

“ _Hey!_ ”

“You and Draco, you utter moron. Watching you two make sad puppy eyes at each other is _nauseating_. It’s bad enough when we aren’t all in close quarters, but this week has been truly unbearable. Make. A fucking. _Move._ ”

As what Pansy was saying sunk in, Harry felt himself pale. If ‘everyone’ thought that they should leave it alone, that meant that they all _knew._ Fucking hell, this was not good. “What?” he said again, trying to buy time by feigning ignorance. “What are you even talking about? I don’t—”

“Save it,” she said, holding up a hand. “I doubt even _you_ believe your own bullshit at this point.”

Harry grimaced. She was right, but he didn’t particularly appreciate being called on it. “Okay fine, so _maybe_ I’m attracted to him. But that doesn’t mean—”

“Attracted? Is that what we’re calling it? Because I’m reasonably sure that you’re in—”

“Oh my god stop.” _That_ was not something he was even ready to contemplate. “It doesn't matter. The point is that that doesn’t mean that _he_ —”

“He does.” 

Harry blinked, taken aback. “Did he tell you that?”

“He doesn’t have to, any more than you do.”

Harry sighed. A confirmation of some sort would have been too much to ask for, he supposed. “Look. Pansy. I get that you mean well, but Draco’s friendship is important to me. I’m not going to risk that by making some sort of confession. Okay?”

“Harry,” Pansy said, her expression both determined and quite visibly done with his shit. “I have known Draco Malfoy since we were five years old. I have watched him watching you since we were eleven. He spends more time with you than he does with literally anyone else in his life. His fucking face lights up when you come into a room. He touches you constantly, you have about nine thousand inside jokes, and he hasn’t gone out with anyone else in like two years. Salazar, Potter, he _slept in your fucking bed._ How much more obvious does he need to be for you to take a chance?”

“Just the once,” Harry muttered. He felt his shoulders raise defensively and looked at his feet. “Why hasn’t he said anything, then?”

“Because he’s even more of an insecure idiot than you are.” When Harry looked back up at her, she actually looked almost sympathetic, which was a bit of a disturbing expression to see on her usually-smirking face. “Look. Nothing’s ever 100% certain, but I would bet anything that he wants you just as much as you want him. I’d… hell. I’d stake my own relationship on it, and I know you know that I wouldn’t risk Ginny for anything. But you need to do something before he gives up and moves on. No one’s willing to wait forever, not even Draco.”

With a pat on the shoulder, she left him alone in the dim room. He took a deep breath; his heart was pounding like he’d been running. Feeling decidedly more sober than he had a few minutes ago, Harry decided to skip the beer run and head up to his room. He needed to think.

*****

When Draco found Harry later, he was lying on his back on the balcony of his room—knees bent, hands folded on his stomach, looking at the stars. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out here, but he supposed it must have been awhile if Draco had come looking.

“Hey,” Draco said softly from the doorway. “Are you okay? I thought you were just running in for drinks, but you never came back.”

“Sorry,” Harry answered sheepishly, not looking at him. “Pansy sort of cornered me earlier, and I needed to think for a bit.”

Draco stepped outside and slid the door closed behind himself. “May I join you?”

Despite his inner turmoil, Harry found himself smiling slightly. He patted the planks next to him, laughing quietly as Draco cast a quick scouring charm before lying down next to him, mimicking his posture to look up at the clear night sky. They lay there listening to the low murmur of their friends around the side of the house for a few minutes before Draco spoke.

“So, care to share just what our darling Pansy said that’s got you hiding from everyone?”

“I’m not hiding,” Harry said, petulant, but he didn’t sound convincing to even himself, so he was unsurprised by Draco’s disbelieving snort. He sighed. “She wanted to talk about my _feelings._ I thought Slytherins were supposed to hate that sort of thing.”

Draco laughed. “It’s been a long time since Hogwarts, Harry.” He paused before going on. “Feelings about what?” His voice turned teasing. “Are she and Ginevra looking to make it a threesome?”

“Oh _gross_ ,” Harry said, choking on a small laugh. “Absolutely not. No, my feelings about… er… well, you.”

Silence for a moment. “Oh.” Draco’s voice was quieter, tentative, as he asked, “And?”

“ _And,”_ Harry said, and then trailed off, unsure how to continue. “And,” he said, finally, “I’m honestly scared of answering that question.”

He could see Draco smirk slightly out of the corner of his eye, even in the dim light of the moon. “I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave.”

“Oh fuck off,” Harry said with a surprised little laugh. Then his tone went serious once more. “Do you really want to know?”

“I…” Harry could hear his own uncertainty reflected back at him, but still, when Draco went on, he sounded resolute. “Yes.”

“Right. Okay. I—” Harry rubbed his eyes under his glasses, unable to face even the stars. “I think I’m in love with you,” he mumbled, finally. He heard a sharp intake of breath, but Draco didn’t immediately spring up and bolt, so he soldiered on, his voice stronger now that it was out there and couldn’t be taken back. “I think I’ve been in love with you for a really long time. And I’m fucking terrified that by saying it out loud, I’m ruining everything.” 

Draco didn’t respond immediately, and Harry could feel the panic begin to take hold. Fuck. He’d know this was a bad idea, he’d _known—_

“You think you are? Or you are?”

Oh. Harry risked opening his eyes, glancing to the side without moving his head. Draco’s gaze was directed firmly skyward, and his body looked tensed, waiting. Harry looked away, back toward the constellations he’d never quite been able to remember. 

“I mean. I don’t actually have anything to compare it to,” he admitted. This had been part of the messy, confusing tangle of thoughts and feelings he’d been trying to work out ever since Pansy had walked away. “It’s not like I’ve ever been in love before. How do you _know_?”

“You haven’t? I thought you and Ginny—”

Harry huffed a little laugh. “No, we were never… I mean, yeah, I loved her. I _do_ love her. But, I don’t know. We were all… young and traumatized and whatever. It was different.” He paused. “With you it’s just… I want to be around you, like, all the time. No matter how much time we spend together, I always want more. I love talking to you. You’re so passionate about the oddest fucking things. And I _always_ want to kiss you. Like, even when you’re pissing me off.” He sighed, frustrated. “Actually, _especially_ then, because I want to kiss you to shut you up. It’s kind of awful, to be honest. So, yeah. I don’t know. Is that ‘being in love’?” Harry felt hot all over, his face burning and his chest tight.

Draco didn’t answer, and Harry was afraid to breathe. After a moment, though, Harry felt a warm hand brush tentatively against his, pausing as though waiting to be stopped before carefully linking their fingers together. Harry closed his eyes, suddenly aware of every square millimeter of his skin as his captured hand was lifted toward Draco and warm lips pressed softly against his knuckles. His heart gave a little stutter. “You’re a fucking idiot,” Draco said, but his voice wobbled slightly. Harry opened his eyes and turned his head to find Draco watching him.

“That’s what Pansy said, too,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Actually, she said we both were.”

Draco snorted halfheartedly. “Traitor.”

“So?” Harry asked, turning on his side to fully face him, not releasing his hand. His heart was beating so loudly that he thought it might be drowning out the crickets.

“So,” Draco said, mimicking Harry’s movement so that they were facing each other, meeting his eyes. His voice, when he went on, was barely more than a whisper. “Kiss me.”

Harry did.

It was soft—just a press of lips, nothing profound—but Harry immediately felt something inside of him unfurling, like a piece of himself had been wrapped up tightly in twine and had finally been cut free. _Oh,_ he thought, feeling giddy. _I’m definitely a fucking idiot._ He pulled back. “Okay, I think Pansy might have a bit of a point?”

“Meaning…?” Draco licked his bottom lip, looking hopeful but uncertain.

Harry summoned every ounce of Gryffindor bravery he had left in him. “Definitely in love with you.”

“Oh thank god,” Draco exhaled on a laugh.

Everything in Harry felt light, buoyant. But still, he had to ask— “So, does that mean that you…?”

Draco groaned and flopped onto his back, flinging an arm over his face dramatically. “Oh my god, must you?”

Harry grinned hopelessly. “Yes.”

He dropped his arm with a frustrated sigh. “Yes, fine, I’m in love with you, too. Fucking _obviously_. Ugh. It’s ridiculous, to be honest, and I-”

Harry leaned forward and kissed him again, catching his lips while they were open, and meeting them softly as they closed. Draco hummed softly as his rant died, and Harry pulled back to find him looking a bit stunned.

Harry didn’t know if his laugh was amusement or relief or just unbearable joy. Probably all three. He rolled so that he was poised over Draco. “Good to know,” he said, and leaned down to kiss him again.

“You’re such a prat,” Draco said when he pulled back.

“You love me.” Harry was euphoric, and he knew that his smile was probably embarrassingly fond. Draco rolled his eyes, but was unable to hide his smile as he cupped the back of Harry’s neck in his hand, pulling him back down.

Kissing Draco was nothing like what Harry would have expected. He’d always imagined that it would be just as competitive as everything else they did, full of teeth and determination. Instead, it felt sure and steady and entirely in unison, as though this, finally, was something that they could completely agree on. When their tongues met, Harry found that Draco tasted of porter, burnt sugar, and chocolate—they must have made s’mores again while he’d been up here searching the sky for answers like a particularly inept centaur. He pushed that thought quickly away in favor of chasing the intoxicating flavors back into Draco’s mouth, losing himself in warmth and wonder. 

Draco’s body was firm beneath his, his hands urging Harry closer, deeper, and Harry could feel himself starting to harden. He wanted to be nearer; he wanted to erase all of the boundaries between them; he _wanted._

Suddenly, a peal of laughter in the near-distance startled them apart, reminding them that they were still outside and probably very much in plain sight should anyone choose to wander around the corner. Harry cringed as his awareness of parts of his body other than those currently engaging Draco returned; his elbows were sore from leaning against the hard wood of the balcony floor and he was a bit cramped up, not to mention a little chilly. Draco wiggled his shoulders uncomfortably against the deck.

“Inside?” Harry suggested.

“Please.”

Harry groaned as he got to his feet before reaching down to help pull Draco up, pulling him back through the door. Once they were inside and facing each other, however, Harry found himself unsure how to proceed. Things had been heating up a bit while they were outside, yes, but that didn’t necessarily mean that Draco wanted things to go any further right now. This was all so new. He floundered a bit, awkward and uncertain. “Should we… I mean, I don’t want to rush anything if you—”

Draco rolled his eyes in such a familiar way that Harry felt himself immediately relax. “Potter, we’ve apparently been engaged in several years of prolonged and confusing foreplay. Don’t you think we’ve taken it slowly enough?”

Harry grinned. “You make a very good point.” He took Draco by the waist, pulling him forward to close the distance between them and kissing him once more. Cautiously, he let his hands trail up and down Draco’s sides. When Draco responded, making a pleased little sound and pulling him closer, he let them slide underneath his shirt, caressing skin slightly goose-pimpled from the cool night air or possibly Harry’s touch. Draco shivered, and Harry pulled the shirt up, encouraging Draco to lift his arms so that he could pull it off entirely. 

Looking down at Draco’s now-bare chest, Harry ran his hands slowly, reverently, over pale, perfect skin. Despite his sun charms, Draco’s shoulders were sprinkled with a barely-visible smattering of freckles. The thinnest of scars from a long-ago encounter in a flooded bathroom crisscrossed his chest. He wasn’t by any means muscular, but there was a slight definition to him that Harry found irresistible. He’d seen Draco shirtless before, many times, and he’d touched him, too—but never like this, with permission and intent. 

Draco stood still, allowing Harry’s exploration for a moment, but soon he was shifting away so that he could remove Harry’s shirt as well. Once skin hit skin, everything went a bit fuzzy. Harry vaguely remembered tripping as he tried to get out of his jeans without remembering to take his shoes off first, and the sound of Draco laughing helplessly at him, only to end up swearing as his own shoes refused to come untied. 

Eventually, they were stretched out naked on the bed, and Harry was above Draco again, kissing him. He found himself cataloguing the feel of every place their bodies met: his rough leg hair catching against Draco’s finer fuzz, the soft skin of stomachs skimming together, his now fully hard cock sliding alongside Draco’s, making them both shudder. Finally touching like this was heaven, and also almost hilariously surreal. To go so quickly from desperately in denial to desperately turned on was bizarre and wonderful.

Harry kissed Draco’s lips, his cheeks, his forehead, his neck, and Draco laughed and pulled him closer, rolling his hips up invitingly. Harry ground down in response, and the friction was almost too much. Draco seemed to agree, as he pulled back from where he had begun kissing along Harry’s shoulder to say, “you didn’t happen to bring lube with you, did you?” 

Harry made a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh. “No. I planned for a lot of things on this trip, but definitely not this.”

Draco grumbled, pushing Harry partially off of him so that he could reach his wand. “I hate conjured lube.”

“We could always wait until we get home?” Harry suggested, knowing, now, that there was no way in hell that Draco would take him up on that offer.

Sure enough, Draco turned to glare at him over his shoulder as he waved his wand above his hand. “You bite your tongue.”

“ _You_ bite it.” Harry laughed, delighted at just how _Draco_ he was, even like this. He fell back as Draco returned fully to the bed, pushing on his chest and climbing atop him. Bracing himself on one hand, Draco used the other to carefully slick them both, immediately turning Harry’s laugh into a moan. “Jesus.”

“Mmhmm,” Draco agreed as he began to slowly stroke them together in his hand. And then, “Fuck.” 

Harry couldn’t figure out where to settle his eyes: on Draco’s pale hand moving over them both, on the flush rising up his chest, on his face, where his eyes had fallen closed and his mouth hung slightly open. He was beautiful, and Harry was getting close much faster than he would have liked. He bit down hard on his lip to try to bring himself back down again. “Fuck, Draco. Is this— ah, stop, wait.”

Draco’s hand released immediately and his eyes opened. “What’s wrong?” His breathing was rough, but his eyes were concerned.

“Nothing!” Harry rushed to reassure him. He took a couple of breaths, trying to clear his head enough to form a coherent sentence. “I’m just— if you wanted to do anything else you should tell me, because I’m...” he made a vague, embarrassed gesture.

“Oh!” Draco relaxed, looking very pleased with himself. He sat back on his haunches and licked his lips, looking down at Harry consideringly. “What’s your refractory period usually like?”

“Er, not bad?” Harry’s cock twitched against his stomach. The bluntness of the question really shouldn’t’ve have been so hot, should it? “This isn’t really a _usual_ situation...” his eyes skimmed up and down Draco’s body. “Yeah, gonna guess pretty short.”

“Well then.” Draco grinned and leaned back down, murmuring into Harry’s mouth as his hand returned to its former position. “Let’s just do this and go from there, shall we?”

Harry whimpered as Draco’s hand began to move again, which he hoped Draco would interpret as the “yes please” that it was. The sense of urgency had begun to subside during their brief break, but it didn’t take long before he found himself back on the edge, hopelessly aroused by the feel of Draco’s fingers tight around them, the smell of the crook of his neck, the small sounds he was making. “Fuck, I’m— oh fuck.” His fingers clenched into the skin of Draco’s sweat-damp back, and Draco took this as encouragement to speed up his strokes. Harry had only seconds before his orgasm shot from him, his entire body tensing as he failed to stifle a resoundingly loud groan. 

“Fucking hell,” he could just barely hear Draco mutter over the roaring of blood in his ears, and then a hot splash hit his chest, informing him that he wasn’t alone in his release. Draco slumped down on top of him, smearing the streaks of come between them.

“Gross,” Harry said, but he was grinning ear to ear.

“Fuck off,” Draco muttered into his shoulder. Harry could feel his smile against his skin. He kissed a line up Harry’s neck and then rolled off of him with an unpleasant squelching noise. “Eugh, okay, yes, that’s disgusting.”

Harry snickered and grabbed his own wand from where he’d left it on his nightstand earlier that day, summoning a washcloth from the bathroom and wiping the worst of the mess from both of their stomachs. Tossing it to the floor, he turned onto his side so that he was facing Draco. He was flushed and sweaty and gorgeous, and Harry couldn’t believe that he was allowed to see him like this. And touch him like this, he realized, reaching out to run light fingers over his protruding clavicles, down his ribs, across his hip bones. Draco arched into the touch and let out a contented hum. “You’re like a cat,” Harry observed.

“If you mean that I will bite if you piss me off, then yes, you are correct,” Draco answered, opening one eye and giving him an amused look.

“Duly noted.” Harry flattened his palm, caressing down Draco’s side and then up his arm, his neck, finally cupping his face and leaning down to kiss him. “That was really nice,” he murmured against his lips.

“That was spectacular,” Draco answered him, smiling and kissing him back. “But if you give me a few minutes it will be even better.”

“I seem to remember you saying something about that, yeah,” Harry grinned, letting his hand travel downward again, this time skimming lower, along the outer curve of his thigh and then inward and upward, grazing along the crease of Draco’s groin and over his currently-flaccid and probably oversensitive cock, startling a gasp and a half-hearted glare out of him. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well.” Draco took a breath to regain his composure and then rolled onto his side so that he was facing Harry, meeting his gaze. “I was hoping that you might let me fuck you into this very comfortable mattress, but I’m open to suggestions.” He sounded confident, but he was biting his lower lip nervously.

Harry shivered, immediately beset by the rather compelling mental picture of Draco thrusting into him. “Yeah no that’s, uh— that’s good. I like that suggestion.” 

Draco’s answering smile went quickly from relieved to positively devious. “Glad to hear it.” 

He leaned in to kiss Harry once more. Despite their conversation, there was no urgency behind it, just enjoyment of the fact that this was something they could do now. Harry didn’t think he would ever get sick of it—Draco’s mouth against his, his tongue slipping past his lips, his teeth occasionally nipping at his bottom lip. Harry’s hand caressed up Draco’s chest, around his side, down his back, over the smooth skin of his buttocks. He hitched Draco’s leg, pulling it over his own hip so that he could tease his fingers up the long, firm thigh. Draco smiled into Harry’s mouth, pulling him closer with his foot, long fingers tracing patterns over Harry’s back and shoulders.

Before too long, Harry felt a slight pressure against his hip and realized that Draco was already beginning to get hard again. He groaned a little, the thought of it enough to cause an answering stirring, and deepened the kiss. He spared a moment to be relieved that he hadn’t been wrong about his refractory period before Draco answered in kind and all thoughts fled his mind. 

Soon, Harry was on his back once more, Draco kissing him deeply even as he slid freshly-lubed fingers past resisting muscle, patiently working Harry open. By the time he’d slid a third finger in, brushing teasingly against Harry’s prostate and making him gasp, they were both fully hard again.

“Do you want me to…?” Draco asked as he finally withdrew his fingers.

“Yeah,” Harry sighed, eager for more than Draco’s fingers. “Ready.”

Draco let out a shuddering breath and leant down, kissing Harry again. Despite his earlier bravado, it was clear that he was nervous. Harry was, too; everything they’d done so far had been amazing, but there was something about the intimacy of this, of Draco being inside of him, that felt overwhelmingly _real_.

The first long, slow thrust burned, and Harry found himself hiding his face against Draco’s shoulder as he tried to adjust. It had been a long time since he’d let anyone do this. Once Draco was fully seated, Harry clung to him tightly, willing him to stay still.

“You okay?” Draco asked, voice a bit strained.

“Yeah,” Harry said, breathing heavily. “Yeah, just… give me a sec. It’s been awhile.” He let his head fall back against the pillows, and Draco, despite looking thoroughly wrecked already, managed to smirk down at him.

“I’d say I’m sorry you’re out of practice, but I’m really, really not right now.”

Harry snorted and felt his body relax. “Arse. Okay, I’m good, you can move.”

Draco let out a breath and pulled back slowly before sinking back in, building up a gentle rhythm as he watched himself ease in and out of Harry’s body. Harry’s eyes fell shut as any remnants of discomfort faded away, leaving only the surreal bliss of letting another person—letting _Draco_ —in like this. Soon, though, the slow, rocking slide wasn’t enough, and Harry tried to urge Draco to pick up the pace with his heels against his back. When Draco didn’t respond, Harry growled in frustration. “Come on, I’m not fragile; you can speed up.”

“I don’t know,” Draco said, voice somehow teasing despite his heavy breathing.

Harry groaned and pushed his hips upward. “Come _on_ , fuck me like you mean it.”

Draco’s eyes flashed at the challenge, and Harry grinned, knowing he’d won, even before Draco thrust almost viciously back into him.

*****

Some time later, Draco flopped onto his back with an exhausted groan. “Fucking hell, my whole body is shaking.” He looked over at Harry and stretched his arms with a wince. “Kayaking was a terrible choice. Next time, you’re doing all the work.”

“Gladly.” Grabbing his wand once more, Harry cast a quick charm over them both, drying most of the sweat that coated their bodies. It wasn’t enough to remove the sticky aftermath of their lovemaking, but it did, at least, dispel the clammy feeling of sweat and spunk cooling in the evening air. He turned, curling against Draco’s side just to feel the warmth of his skin again. “I kind of can’t believe this is happening right now,” he admitted, his head resting against Draco’s chest. “I honestly didn’t think it ever would.” 

Draco ran a hand through Harry’s hair, sending gentle shivers down his spine. “Me either,” he admitted, voice uncharacteristically serious. “I spent so much time trying not to think about it. I thought, sometimes… but then you’d pull back, and I’d be sure I’d imagined it.”

“You still came to sleep in my bed, though,” Harry said, smiling a little, remembering Pansy’s exasperation at that fact.

“Yes, well, I’m apparently a masochist,” Draco sighed. “Also, Greg really does snore.”

Harry laughed. 

*****


	8. Saturday

Waking naked and curled around Draco, knowing that there was no need to pull away or be embarrassed, was one of the nicest things Harry thought he had ever experienced. He allowed himself to stay put, breathing in the comforting scent of Draco’s skin and hair, until he felt him stirring in his arms.

“Morning,” Draco said sleepily, turning to face him. 

Harry smiled and kissed him softly. “Morning.”

Draco hummed, kissing him back before retreating so that he could see Harry’s face. “No regrets, then?” he asked, voice teasing but gaze serious. Harry ran a hand through his tousled hair.

“Only that we didn’t do that sooner,” he reassured him, smiling again. He couldn’t _stop_ smiling. He felt ridiculous, but he was so stupidly, besottedly happy.

“Mmm. Yes, that was rather wasteful of us,” Draco agreed, biting his lip thoughtfully. “We’ll just have to make sure to make up for lost time, I suppose.” 

Harry tried to answer, but Draco’s hands were already wandering, and he promptly decided that his mouth had better things to do at the moment.

*****

Harry didn’t think it was all that much later when they made their way downstairs, but realized that it must be further along in the morning than he’d thought when seven heads turned to look at them as soon as they reached the foot of the stairs. Before he could think of anything to say, Pansy, Ginny, and Blaise broke into a round of applause and wolf whistles. Luna was smiling, and Hermione and Greg both looked quietly pleased, if a tad embarrassed. 

Ron, however, was giving Harry a rather pained look. “Mate. You do know that silencing charms are a thing, right?”

Harry felt his eyes go wide. “Oh god.” 

“That was part of it,” Luna agreed, and Harry wished he could sink through the floor and deep into the ground. In his peripheral vision, he saw Draco squeeze his eyes shut.

“Harry forgetting doesn’t really surprise me, actually; we all know he hasn’t gotten laid in years,” Pansy opined. Harry gave an inadvertent squawk of protest, but she continued without pause. “Draco, however, is a filthy hypocrite.” She smirked, and he scowled. “Just how many times _have_ you told me and Ginny to remember our silencing charms since we’ve been here?” She looked to Ginny. “Love?”

Ginny was grinning in a way that let Harry know that they were not going to hear the end of this for a long, long time. “Oh, at least once a day.”

Draco opened his mouth, shut it, and then moved in a way that suggested he was about to make a run for it. Harry’s hand shot out to grab him by the wrist. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he hissed. 

“Harry’s right, Draco, darling,” Blaise said, sipping what appeared to be a mimosa. He was leaning against the counter, sporting a simple white sundress that might have been Hermione’s and looking beyond delighted. “It wouldn’t be fair to leave him on his own. You were, after all, the louder party.”

Draco flushed and glared. “I truly hate all of you,” he announced to the room at large.

“I think you’ll find that you _owe_ me, actually,” Pansy contradicted him. 

“That is the only reason I haven’t hexed you,” Draco grumbled, and Pansy laughed.

Hermione was quite visibly trying to bite back a smile. “Not that this isn’t all very important,” she said, “but we should discuss a timeline for getting back on the road, yes?”

Latching on to the opportunity to escape what had to be one of the most embarrassing moments of Harry’s life, he quickly began talking to her about the things they needed to do to clean up the house, driving logistics, and portkey times.

*****

Their friends still hadn’t let Harry and Draco drive together on their way back to Newark.

“You’re going to be even more distracted by each other than usual,” Ron had pointed out, and their protestations had been in vain. 

When they’d ended up split the same way they had been on their way in, Draco had given him a smug smirk before climbing into the SUV, leaving Harry staring after him pleadingly. He did _not_ want to spend two hours in a car with Ginny, Pansy, and Blaise right now. Thankfully, they managed to behave themselves—probably because within five minutes of leaving, Harry told them that if they didn’t stop tormenting him, he might be distracted enough to crash the car.

By the time they arrived back in London it was past sunset and, despite the time change, Harry was exhausted. They all gathered their luggage to head their separate ways, Harry and Draco enduring another round of teasing when Draco opted to stick with Harry rather than heading back to his own flat. Finally, however, they stood in the foyer of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Harry breathing in the familiar smell of it with a mix of relief and melancholy. After a week away, it felt strange to be returning to the real world. 

He was distracted from his musings by a pair of long arms wrapping around him from behind and a pointy chin resting itself on his shoulder. He relaxed and leaned back into Draco’s embrace. “You’ll stay for awhile?” he asked.

“As long as you want me to,” Draco murmured, and Harry shivered at the caress of Draco’s breath against his ear. He turned, looping his arms around Draco’s shoulders.

“So. Housing swap not such a bad idea after all?” he teased, playing with the hair at the nape of Draco’s neck. 

Draco gave a put-upon sigh. “I suppose not. Although I do have a suggestion, should you get the urge to repeat the experience.”

“Oh?”

Draco smirked down at him. Leaning down until their lips were brushing, he pitched his voice low. “Pick someplace that’s only suited for two.”

Harry gave a small huff of laughter and leaned in, not bothering to answer.

*****

Later on, when Harry ventured into the kitchen to find them some food, he found a short note sitting on the counter.

_Your house is just as creepy as you described! We loved it._

He shook his head in amusement. Apparently everybody had their own idea of what made for a good vacation.

_/end_

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaand we're done! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are love; come say hi on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gallifrey1sburning)!
> 
> GB


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